“Cawn’t come too soon for me!” said Hawkins, in a throaty whisper, fondling his rifle lovingly. “They got me best pal yesterday.”
“Then keep your ’ead cool till the time comes to mention wot you think of ’em,” returned the sergeant.
Jim and Wally found a chink in the sandbag parapet, and looked out eagerly ahead. All was quiet. The sparrows, made bold by the extraordinary peace of the morning, still chirped and twittered on No-Man’s Land. No sound came from the German trenches beyond. Here and there a faint smoke-wreath curled lazily into the air, telling of cooking-fires and breakfast.
“How do they know they’re coming?” Wally whispered.
“Aeroplane reconnaissance, I suppose,” Jim answered, pointing to two or three specks floating in the blue overhead, far out of reach of the anti-aircraft guns. “They’ve been hovering up there all the morning. Feeling all right, Wal?”
“Fit as a fiddle. I suppose I’ll be in a blue funk presently, but just now I feel as if I were going to a picnic.”
“So do I—and the men are keen as mustard. I thought little Wilson would be useless; you know how jumpy he’s been since we came here. But look at him, there; he’s as steady and cool as any sergeant. They’re good boys,” said the subaltern, who was not yet twenty.
“Mind your ’ead, sir!” came in an agonized whisper from a corporal below; and Jim ducked obediently under the lee of the parapet.
“It’s quite hot,” he said, peering again through his peep-hole. “There’s a jolly breeze springing up, though.”
The breeze came softly over No-Man’s Land, fluttering the wings of the cheerful sparrows. Across the scarred strip of grass a low, green cloud wavered upwards. It grew more solid, spreading in a dense wall over the parapet of the German trench.