As C Company, or rather what was left of it, were re-forming, Malcolm encountered Grouser Joliffe. The man, ragged and battle-worn, was grousing no longer. A supremely-satisfied smile overspread his face.
"Boys," he whispered, "I've been in luck. Copped a dozen of the dirty 'Uns back there, and not one of them had the courage to put up a fight--an' me single-handed. I sent 'em back, and then had a look round their dug-out. It was some show--not 'arf. Cigars, fags, and drinks no end. Some of the boys strolled in and helped me refresh; but I haven't forgot my pals. Thought I'd tumble across some of 'em still left. Here, take this."
He handed Malcolm a bottle of soda-water, and bestowed a similar gift upon Selwyn and Sergeant Fortescue, for two canvas bags, meant to carry a stock of bombs, were crammed with filled bottles of mineral water from the captured dug-out.
"Joliffe, you are a proper white man!" declared Fortescue, deftly knocking off the head of the bottle and draining the contents at a gulp. "But what have you been up to?"
"Mud-larkin', Sergeant," replied the man, with a solemn wink. He touched the tip of his bayonet. "Like spearing eels in the Waikato, it was."
The men went forward once more. Ahead, dimmed by the rain and drifting smoke, could be discerned the rearmost edge of Berlin Wood. It was quite unlike anything of the nature of a wood for the shells had searched it so thoroughly that hardly a tree-trunk stood more than ten feet in height, while every vestige of leaves and branches had vanished. The blackened and badly-scored trunks looked more like the columns of a long-buried temple than trees, while in many places the charred wood was smouldering, despite the water-logged condition of the ground.
Notwithstanding the terrific pounding of the British heavies, the wood was still strongly held by the enemy. Fallen tree-trunks lay athwart pill-boxes that were still intact, shell craters afforded shelter for dozens of deadly machine-guns. Trip wires and other fiendish contrivances abounded, while in several places fougasses had been constructed, powerful enough to blow a whole platoon in the air.
In cold blood even the bravest man would hesitate before entering the forbidding wood of death; but the New Zealanders never faltered. Into the gloomy sulphurous maze they plunged, with yells and shouts of encouragement.
So intricate was the going that, although several bodies of troops had passed well ahead, there were pill-boxes and other fortified posts left undetected in their rear. Fritz, lying perdu, while the crowd of Anzacs poured onward, would resurrect his tic-tocs and direct a withering machine-gun fire into the backs of the luckless men.
"Look out! On your left!" shouted Fortescue, whose ready eye had detected a sinister movement behind a prostrate tree-trunk.