"Wish I could," rejoined his companion, consulting the luminous dial of his watch. "Unfortunately I'm down for duty at one-thirty."
"What's up, then?" enquired Setley.
"Over there," replied Danvers, pointing towards the front trenches. "They've had a squad from a Labour Battalion hard at it, digging a path for my bus. I was warned to be there at the time I mentioned. Wanted to hang on all the while, but there was that strafed official enquiry."
"I'll go with you," suggested Ralph.
"You're dog tired," objected his chum.
"Not at all," protested Setley. "I'll go. It'll give me an appetite for breakfast, don't you see. I heard that there was to be a variation from the almost everlasting bully beef. There's bacon, Danvers, actually bacon."
"Good!" exclaimed the subaltern. "Let's hope it won't be like the last I tasted. The stuff must have chummed up with the dead end of a poison gas shell. Ugh! It put me off entirely."
"Know the way?" asked Ralph.
"Rather," was the confident reply. "And I guess we won't be lonely. There's plenty of life along the path—and death, too," he added gravely. "We'll follow the track of the Tank."
The well-defined path flattened out by the tractors of Setley's Tank on its return journey afforded a sure guide, although the compressed mud was covered with two or three inches of water. Nevertheless the two officers proceeded with caution; there was no knowing whether a hostile shell or two had pitched after the landship's return, in which case there was a possibility of tumbling into five or six feet of icy-cold water that had drained into the recently formed crater.