The foremost of the approaching squad let rip. Three flashes and three reports as one stabbed the darkness. One of the fugitives pitched forward on his face; the other stumbled for a dozen yards and then rolled sideways to the ground.
"Well done, Alderhame!" exclaimed Ralph.
"Dash my stars!" ejaculated the ex-actor. "I hardly expected to run across you—'upon the vasty fields of France.'"
"What are you doing here?" asked Setley.
"Ration party, sir," replied Sergeant Alderhame. "We were hurrying along because we were taking a cheese ration up to our chaps. The cheese was lively when we started, so we wanted to get the stuff up before it walked off. There's Ginger Anderson sitting on top of one lot."
The men were all from the Wheatshires. The supplies they were bringing up were conveyed in specially constructed wheelbarrows with broad flanges to enable them to traverse soft ground. Until a narrow gauge tramway was laid down this was the best means of getting rations up to the firing line.
"I'll have a look at our birds, sir," continued Alderhame. "I'm curious to know where they were winged."
"Be careful," cautioned Ralph. "They may be lying doggo."
"Trust me for that, sir," was the rejoinder, then telling his squad to temporarily abandon their highly scented cargo he ordered hem to extend and surround the place where the two airmen had fallen.
The pilot was stone dead, with a bullet-wound through the centre of his back. The observer, hit in the thigh and shoulder, had fainted through loss of blood. "Ripping shot that one of mine!" exclaimed Alderhame enthusiastically. "Jolly rummy, though, I can't help feeling like a sportsman on the moors and it's a human being I've brought down."