"Neither should I, very much," said Kemp. "To take one's stand on a ledge fixed at a height which brings one's head and shoulders well above the parapet, and stand there for an hour on end, knowing that a machine-gun may start a spell of rapid traversing fire at any moment—well, it takes a bit of doing, you know, until you are used to it. How did you persuade 'em, Bobby?"
"Oh, I just climbed up on the top of the parapet and sat there for a bit," says Bobby Little modestly. "They were all right after that."
"Had you any excitement, Ayling?" asks Kemp. "I hear rumours that you had two casualties."
"Yes," says Ayling. "Four of us went out patrolling in front of the trench—"
"Who?"
"Myself, two men, and old Sergeant Carfrae."
"Carfrae?" Wagstaffe laughs. "That old fire-eater? I remember him at
Paardeberg. You were lucky to get back alive. Proceed, my son!"
"We went out," continues Ayling, "and patrolled."
"How?"
"Well, there you rather have me. I have always been a bit foggy as to what a patrol really does—what risks it takes, and so on. However, Carfrae had no doubts on the subject whatever. His idea was to trot over to the German trenches and look inside."