"Well, it's about breakfast-time now. Have a bit of chocolate? It is all I have."
It was eight o'clock, and perfect silence reigned. All down the line men, infinitely grubby, were producing still grubbier fragments of bully-beef and biscuits from their persons. For an hour, squatting upon the sodden floor of the trench—it was raining yet again—the unappetising, intermittent meal proceeded.
Then—
"Hallo!" exclaimed Bobby with a jerk (for he was beginning to nod), "what was that on our right?"
"I'm afraid," replied Wagstaffe, "that it was bombs. It was right in this trench, too, about a hundred yards long. There must be a sap leading up there, for the bombers certainly have not advanced overground. I've been looking out for them since stand-to. Who is this anxious gentleman?"
A subaltern of the battalion on our right was forcing his way along the trench. He addressed Wagstaffe.
"We are having a pretty bad time with Bosche bombers on our right, sir," he said. "Will you send us down all the bombs you can spare?"
Wagstaffe hoisted himself upon the parapet.
"I will see our C.O. at once," he replied, and departed at the double.
It was a risky proceeding, for German bullets promptly appeared in
close attendance; but he saved a good five minutes on his journey to
Battalion Headquarters at the other end of the trench.
Presently the bombs began to arrive, passed from hand to hand.
Wagstaffe returned, this time along the trench.