The red-haired officer raised his eyes wearily.
“Wilibald’s bag is big enough already. Wilibald sits over there”—he indicated the German position with a swinging movement—“in some hole or other as snug as a bug in a rug, with a telescope sighted rifle which he knows to the inch. You go and look for him with a rifle you don’t know to a yard. You —— fool!”
“All right, Red. We know your hobby. Only we wish you’d deliver the goods.”
“Meaning Wilibald?”
“Yes. Wilibald is becoming a public nuisance. He’s got nine of us, including an officer and an N.C.O., and he’s got more than a dozen of the West Blanks who relieve us. He’s ... Damn! that’s him.”
A shot had rung out, followed by an ejaculation. The two officers hurried along the trench to where in a bay a consequential private was pouring iodine into a sergeant’s cheek. Three or four other privates were talking excitedly.
“It come from the ’Un trench.”
“It didn’t. It come from the trees in the spinney.”
“That’s right. The fifth tree.”
“Naw. The sixth.”