It was useless to think of digging even an experimental trench in the loose sand of the beach, so they selected a piece of more solid ground between the foreshore and the grass land. They chose the spot almost at random. Even Darby Catchpole did not realise at first how near they were to the groin from which Max Hilliger had escaped into the boat with his case of charts.
Mark Redisham staked out the ground and they began to dig, piling the soil on the side nearest the sea. It was decided that when the trench was deep enough, it should be roofed in with cross planks and brushwood, upon which the soil should be heaped to resist the impact of bombs from the air or shells from the sea; but at present the work was only undertaken as practice in excavation. The cross planks, the sap trench, and the means of entrance and exit would be properly applied when the dug-out came to be made in Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's garden.
They had been digging for about half an hour, when Seth Newruck's spade chipped against something that was neither soil nor stone. He looked down at the thing in wonder, then grabbed at it.
"Darby! Mark!" he cried. "See what I've found! A cigarette case! It's silver!"
His companions all crowded up to him to look at it over his shoulder. Certainly it was a silver cigarette-case, and a very handsome one. There was a monogram engraved in the centre of its chased surface.
"It isn't even tarnished," declared Mark Redisham. in surprise. "It's almost new. It can't have been buried very long. How deep did you find it?"
"Just here," Seth explained, pointing out the spot about two feet down.
"That's queer!" resumed Mark. "I can't understand—unless some one has been digging here before us, quite lately, and dropped it by accident. Some of the Territorials, perhaps."
"Now that I come to think of it," said Darby Catchpole, "the ground did look as if it had been disturbed. There was no grass growing on top."
Mark Redisham had opened the case. It contained three cigarettes, held in place by a band of blue elastic. He took one of them out and examined it.