A few slightly wounded Highlanders cheerfully accepted the commission. Thirty badly scared Prussian Guardsmen, deprived of their arms and accoutrements, meekly submitted to be marched off under the escort of the indomitable Scotsmen, while in order to ingratiate themselves with their captors the Huns voluntarily carried several of the British wounded to the advanced dressing stations.
Setley's next task was to render what assistance he could to the crew of the bogged Tank. Already the crew, finding that the mild bombardment with bombs had ceased, had emerged from their metal-box and were somewhat ruefully surveying the unclimbable walls of their prison.
"Hullo, Danvers!" shouted Ralph. "Sorry you've had ill-luck. We'll find a means to haul you out; but your bus must wait, I'm afraid."
Cautiously, and with his revolver ready for instant action, Sergeant Archer, accompanied by two of the crew, descended into a dug-out, the entrance of which was not blocked sufficiently to prevent squeezing through. Within were half a dozen dead Huns—killed instantly by the concussion of a high-explosive shell, yet without a wound on them. Apparently, the dug-out formed the engineers' store, for there were tools in plenty, including mattocks, spades, sectional ladders, and ropes.
Returning with his find, the sergeant was about to report upon his success when a bomb hurtled through the air. Instantly the three men threw themselves flat on their faces, while a second later the missile exploded without doing them harm beyond covering them with mud and dust.
Starting to his feet, Archer levelled his revolver. He was at a loss to discover the whereabouts of the thrower. It seemed as if the missile had been projected from the Tank, until a burst of machine-gun fire leapt from her side into the wall of earth within three feet from the muzzle of the gun.
The landship had come to a stop immediately opposite the mouth of a dug-out which had been so badly battered that the timber props were leaning together like an inverted V. Within a desperate Hun still lurked, and finding Archer and the two men in the open he had hurled a bomb in the hope of strafing the Englishmen.
"Hands up!" shouted Archer, flattening himself against the bank of earth by the entrance of the dug-out and firing a couple of shots into the cavernous recess by way of adding weight to his words.
There was no reply.
"That Maxim laid the blighter out, sergeant," suggested one of the men.