"You can't, unless you know the plans," the sergeant-major answered. "You've no idea of the amount of work that our draughtsmen have to do, in mapping out these underground cities and thousands of miles of ditch-streets. I know my little section, of course, and each officer has learned the tangle of trenches in which his command is likely to operate. But the officers have to know the tangle of the enemy's trenches, too, and, what's more, when we attack, they have to be in the front and guide us. An assault isn't just a blind drive over the top, it must have a definite goal and has to be reached a certain way. The officers have got to know the Boche roads as well as our own."
"But how can they find that out?"
"Aeroplanes with photographers and draughtsmen," came the reply. "You've heard the story of the tattooed draughtsman?"
"No," answered Horace, "I haven't."
"He was a young fellow," the veteran began, "who was assigned to the job of making a plan of the enemy's trenches opposite his part of the line. The Boche lines were on a little higher ground than ours at that point, so that nothing could be seen from the fire trench. The young draughtsman went up in a machine several times, but there was a very efficient battery of anti-aircraft guns a little back of their lines and the Archies would not let our Farman aëroplane come down low enough for a photograph to show anything definite.
"This chap got desperate. He was bound to succeed, no matter what happened to him. At last, one night, we caught a Boche patrol on No Man's Land and wiped them out. As soon as the return fire slackened, the draughtsman, who had been in one of the dug-outs, crawled out, and, wriggling flat to where the Boches had fallen, he grabbed one of the dead men by the ankle and dragged him to our trench.
"Then, unobtrusively and to our open-mouthed astonishment, the young draughtsman dressed himself in the dead man's uniform, read carefully all the papers in the pockets, so that he might learn who it was he was counterfeiting and bade us good-bye.
"'There's just about one chance in a million,' he said, 'that I don't get found out right away. If I am, then—' He clicked his tongue like a trigger. 'If I'm not caught and can manage to go back with the relief and return again,' he said, 'as soon as I get to the trench I'll bolt out of it, holding my left arm stretched out straight. You'll know by that, it's me. They'll pot me from behind, of course, but I may get half-way over No Man's Land before they do. If I drop, just smother the place where I fell with bullets so that the Boches don't have a chance to sneak out and get me.'
"'But that'll cut you to ribbons,' I said to him.
"He shrugged his shoulders.