“You must run across that break. Three or four shots at you every time. We’re gradually getting shipshape, though.”
Just then a couple of bullets went singing overhead. The group paid no attention to them. If you paid attention to bullets over the parapet you would have no time for anything else. But these bullets have a way of picking off tall officers, who are standing up among their houses. In the course of their talk they happened to mention such an instance, though not with reference to the two bullets I have mentioned.
“Poor S—— did not last long. He had been out only three weeks.”
“How is J——? Hit badly?”
“Through the shoulder; not seriously.”
“H—— is back. Recovered very quickly.”
Normal trench talk, this! A crack which signifies that the bullet has hit—another man down. One grows accustomed to it, and one of this group of officers might be gone to-morrow.
“I have one, sir,” said Matty, exhibiting a helmet when we returned past his station. “Bullet went right through the head and came out the peak!”
It was time that Captain P—— was back to his own command. As we came to his company’s line word was just being passed from sentry to sentry:
“Not firing. Patrols going out.”