"Right, old man!" replied Selwyn in a low-pitched, unnatural voice.
It was useless to disguise the fact. Both had "the wind up" very badly. Malcolm could hear his heart thumping violently under his tunic; he was fully conscious of an empty, nauseating sensation in the pit of his stomach. He doubted whether he could stir up courage at the critical moment to leap over the parapet into the impending tornado of machine-gun bullets and pulverizing, bursting shells.
[Illustration: "WING HIM!" EXCLAIMED MALCOLM]
Others had done the same. Why not he? Vainly he tried to argue with himself that he was differently constituted from other men. He was too young to die. He had not drunk deeply of the joys of manhood. Why had he been such a fool as to underrate his age when he joined up? If----
The shrill blast of a whistle pierced the strained silence. With a loud yell the men leapt upon the scaling-ladders. His fears thrown to the wind, and the exhilarating sensation of unfettered action surging through his veins, Malcolm found himself scrambling over sand-bags and leaping into the pitted No Man's Land.
Even as he took the leap a seven-fold lurid flash burst from the dominating ridge of Messines. The ground trembled and swayed beneath his feet. Sand-bags and tons of earth subsided into the trenches so recently vacated by the troops, while a deafening, dumbfounding roar beat upon the lad's ears.
Almost mechanically Malcolm broke into a run. In front and on either side other men were surging onwards, their bayonet-tips describing erratic curves as they lurched over the still-trembling ground. Showers of dust beat upon their faces. Farther ahead masses of solid rock and earth were falling with a succession of thuds, while, where Messines Ridge had been, was a riven mound of disintegrated Soil, over which a dense cloud of black smoke rolled sullenly in the sultry night air.
One of the greatest engineering feats of the Great War--in fact, the greatest mining operation in the history of the world's battles--had been successfully carried out, a task compared with which the great mine of Beaumont Hamel paled into insignificance. With a concentrated roar, the concussion of which was distinctly felt over the greater part of south-eastern England, the explosive contents of a series of mine-chambers were fired simultaneously.
In the fraction of a second the whole of Messines Ridge underwent a startling change. German dug-outs, trenches, machine-gun emplacements, and an unknown but vast number of troops went up in the terrific blast.