No trench is ever dug, by a wise commander, at the exact top of a hill, but always at a point a little below, which is called the "military crest." If the trench were on the top of the hill, every time the men raised themselves to fire, their heads and trunks would stand out too clearly defined against the sky-line, and make them easy marks for an enemy below.
Up on the top of the hill, however, was a depression in the ground. Into this space the transport wagons were driven, and here the dead were laid out and the wounded attended to.
A deadly morning's work it had proved. Five infantrymen had been killed, twelve were wounded badly enough to be out of the fighting lists for the present, while twenty-two others, though more or less wounded, were still fit for duty.
"Now, chum, you see what follows the fighting," murmured Hal in Noll's ear. "How do you like what follows the fighting?"
"It looks some grim," Sergeant Terry admitted, wrapping his left hand where a creese had made a gash. "But what are we here for, and why are we soldiers, if this sort of thing doesn't appeal to us?"
"I'm afraid you're hopelessly blood-thirsty," smiled Hal.
"No; I'm not. I enlisted because I believed I'd like the soldier life, and fighting is the highest expression of the soldier's work."
"Hello, there, 'Long'!" called Private Kelly.
"Yes?" answered Private William Green, turning at the hail.
"Did you bring along your kantab and pass plenty of it to the goo-goos?"