And so they came, down a rutty road black with slag, past a shattered wall of red-brick, under the vast shadow of Fosse Nine. The Weasel held up his whip, and the column halted.
“It’s quite all right, sir. The position’s well under cover,” said Peter.
“I know that,” snapped Stark, “but it’s no use letting these fellows get into careless habits. Tell ’em to dismount, Purves. And then go along and explain the danger of halting at a cross-roads. Have ’em come up two at a time. You’ve selected your forward wagon-line, I suppose.”
“Yes, sir. Just behind the Fosse.”
“Good lad. Don’t keep more than six horses there, though. Now you, Jameson, come along with me. Never mind your precious Little Willie. Jelks’ll look after him.”
They dismounted; walked forward. On their left stood the half of a red house, riven with shell-fire. (“Cross-roads!” commented the Colonel): three hundred yards in front, screened by a fold in the ground from enemy observation, rose a few tall trees; thereunder, heaps of white clay, the disused French gun-pits already echoing to the tools of battery fatigue parties.
From a sunken hedge on their right, came a double report, the flash and smoke of a piece discharging. Involuntarily, P.J. started.
“Four point seven,” explained Stark. “Used to call ’em Long Toms in South Africa. Let’s go and see if your pal Caroline’s got that omelette she promised us.”
They turned off to their left—Stark casting a quick eye across the field below the Fosse at the men already unlimbering the telephone-waggon—came to a low shuttered house,—first of three on the road; knocked on a white door in the wall.
“Bon jour, mon Colonel. Vous arrivez tôt.” A thick-set peasant-wench, neither uncomely nor over-cleanly, led them through a draggled garden under a rusty iron-work arbour towards the house.