One morning the trenches were subjected for the first time to the fire of a heavy howitzer. A peculiar low drone, rapidly increasing in loudness, was heard.
"'Ware Jack Johnson!" cried Captain Adams, and the men crouched in the trenches, holding their breath.
The first shell fell some distance behind the lines. They heard a terrific crash, and saw a column of thick smoke. The second shell, about a minute after the first, fell far too short, plunging into the ground just in front of the German trenches, and bespattering them with earth. The third exploded in the pond between the lines, and sent a wave into the German trench at the side. During the next half hour the ground in front of the pond between the opposing forces was pitted with holes made by the heavy shells.
"There's something wrong with the range-finding or the charges," remarked Harry.
"Lucky for us," said Kenneth, brushing from his coat some dust cast up by one of the shells. "The smell is bad enough."
After half an hour the shelling ceased, and the men wondered what purpose the Germans could have had in such an apparently motiveless bombardment. Captain Adams suspected that something was going on in the German lines, and remembering the success of Kenneth and Ginger in discovering the sniper, he decided to send them out that night as a listening patrol. Harry begged to be allowed to go with them.
"Very well," said the captain. "If you're successful we'll try a whole section another time. It's a ticklish job, you understand. You'll crawl over to the German trenches, and listen. You know German, Amory, I believe. You'll do the listening, then; you others keep on the watch. Don't lose your way. I'll take care that the men here don't fire on you as you come back; but if you stray too far to right or left you may find yourselves in hot water."
"You've no special instructions, sir?" asked Kenneth.
"No: you must work out the details yourselves. You're not puppets on the end of a string."
"Nor yet monkeys on a stick," Ginger murmured when the captain had gone. "What did Capting mean by that?"