A severed, coiled strand of barbed wire caught the puttee of his left foot. With a vicious jerk he freed himself from the encumbrance, leaving half a yard of mud-plastered cloth upon the sharp barb. Two yards in front of him was a burly German bomber with a bomb poised ready to hurl.
Regardless of the fact that the explosion of the missile would to an almost certainty annihilate him, the Hun threw the bomb. Setley caught it on the flat blade of his bayonet and threw it aside, where it burst ten yards to the right under a tall, bearded Prussian.
The next instant the thrower received six inches of cold steel right in the centre of his chest. Setley had made a mistake. It was a matter of considerable difficulty to withdraw the blade. He remembered too late the warning of the drill-instructors—when delivering a body thrust aim below the ribs.
Before he could disengage the steel another German commenced a furious blow with the butt-end of his rifle. In the midst of the swing of the weapon a shot rang out within a few inches of Setley's ear, and the Hun, with a curious look of surprise on his sullen features, staggered forward. The descending rifle-butt struck Setley's helmet a glancing blow and, missing his left shoulder, sank deeply into the mud.
"So much for Buckingham: off with his head," yelled Alderhame, as he ejected the still smoking cartridge-case from the breach of his rifle. "How's that, my festive?"
"Thanks," replied Setley briefly; then over the hostile parapet the two comrades surged, bending low as they crouched behind their ready bayonets.
The deep and narrow German trench was crowded with men—dead, wounded, and living. Some of the latter were putting up a stiff fight, like wild animals at bay. Others, with the dismal and monotonous whine of "Mercy, Kamerad!" were holding their hands high above their heads, the bombs taking toll of brave men and cowards alike.
Following at the heels of two of the Wheatshires' bombers, Setley, Alderhame, George Anderson, and two others, made their way along a traverse, the riflemen firing at the side of the bombers. At intervals the latter stopped to hurl their deadly missiles down the steep and steeply shelving entrances to the German dug-outs.
Rounding a sand-bagged traverse the party entered a bay in which was a machine-gun, with its crew of dead and dying lying around the silent weapon. A few paces further on a tall, bearded Hun barred the way.
"Hands up!" yelled Ginger.