"Now boys," he said, as he placed the tin on the floor; "cover yer faces over with this an' be like niggers. A white face can be seen a good distance on a moonlight night, an' if ye're seen on this 'ere job, it'll be all up with the party—they'll be damned unlucky.
"An' when ye've done that, get arf a dozen bombs apiece and bring 'em wiv you," the sergeant continued. "Also, get some brushwood—ye'll find it out 'ere ready for yer—and ye'll g'over disguised as a shrubbery. We'll crawl across, get up to the German trench and fling the bombs in. Then we'll come back again, the 'ole lot of us, if we're lucky.... What the devil's that?"
The stretcher-bearers brought him in from the trench, a rifleman with a wound showing in his shoulder, and placed him on the floor.
"One of the party that was to cross," said the sergeant; then asked: "Much 'urt, old man?"
"Not much wrong," was the reply of the wounded man. "I'm sorry I'm not in the raid.... I looked across and then my shoulder burned...."
"Well, I must get another man," said the sergeant. "You'll do, Reynolds. Get yer face blacked and get some bombs."
The men set to work in the dug-out and blackened their faces, procured their bombs and branches, and got into raiding order. In ten minutes' time they were out on the open, thirty men making towards the German trenches.
Flanagan lit a cigarette, put his hands in his trousers pockets and leant his back against the wall of the dug-out. Bubb looked at him.
"Yer bloomin' old phizz is sooty enough, Flan," he said; "but yer teeth don't arf look white; they'll be seen miles away."
"I suppose I should black them," said Flanagan. "It would be for my own good. Natural selection has not fashioned me for this war environment. Raiding by night is a job for chimney sweeps. They could walk over to the German trenches and they would not be seen in the darkness. Darwin would be very interested in these raids. If he saw one he would write a treatise on Artificial Selection and call it The Survival of the Fittest Disguised. We are disguised; we're one with the night. We accommodate ourselves to our environment like the fox that changes its coat to white when the snow comes."