"Sudden, then; eh? Saw you eating a while ago as if you never expected to get any more. You know the grub lorries get here once in so often and enough. But turn in on your cot now and cover up warm. Geddes, you heat Gaul a cup of tea and take and dry his shoes. And put on dry socks, Gaul. I'll get you some pills. Get ready, fellows! Geddes, you join us when you can. Are all your guns clean? Remember, you want your gas masks along. There's no telling when the Boches may let go some of that stuff."
Sneaking, crawling, seeking every bit of cover, getting into pits made by formerly exploded shells when the Germans had driven the French for a time a year before from this same spot, the five snipers worked over the slope and sought by every means to locate and fire upon those of the enemy who were at the same job.
Herb lay behind a pile of débris once tossed up by a shell, his gun over a mass of pebbles in which he had, with a stick, pushed two narrow grooves, one for his weapon, the other as a peep-hole. To get him, a bullet would have to hit exactly in this groove, in line with it; otherwise the stones would deflect it upward.
The lad studied the entire landscape all the way to and beyond the German trenches, a third of a mile away. If, in the equal number of hiding places below, there was a decided motion of any kind he should have been able to see it.
He heard no shots from his men now scattered over the slope; evidently the Hun marksmen were not out, or were keeping very still. He lay silent, alone, under the warming, welcome sun of late autumn.
It had been a beautiful day, following almost a week of incessant rain. The sun shone in a sky almost without clouds. All along the trenches for a long distance there was not a sound of firing, not an impression on the ear that even slightly suggested two opposing armies seeking to shed each other's blood.
Far over beyond the hillside a bird, welcoming the sunshine also, caroled a lively ditty over and over again. Herbert guessed it was some kind of a linnet and wished that he might calmly arise without a sense of danger and go to spy on the singer. A plucky, little feathered adventurer it must be, indeed, to boldly invade this area of killing and to give such small heed to the deafening boom of great cannon and the frequent crackle of rifles and machine guns.
McGuire it was who crept on hands and knees or advanced in a stooping posture, according to the depth of the sheltering stones or bushes between himself and the enemy, and when within speaking distance of Herbert, began a desultory conversation.
"I—ah—know they are on the—ah—hill," he announced, meaning, of course, the Germans. "Saw one, if not—ah—two, or more. They are lying just as low—ah—as we are and are—ah—taking no chances, I presume. Is it not a most beautiful day?"