Cummins ordered everyone to conceal himself. "Don't any of you move till I sound a whistle."
Five minutes later they could hear the merry chatter of the coolies as they climbed up towards the gun, and the foremost of them appeared out of the trees in the open path below them. Something made them suspicious; they stopped and pointed upwards, jabbering rapidly. Then a young fool of a marine raised his head to look over the breast-work behind which he was lying, and, in a panic, they all took fright, threw down their tools, and scampered down hill as fast as their legs could carry them.
"Heaps of time," said Cummins gently; "we'd better go to breakfast. 'Place your field' again, Williams," he chuckled, "and we'd better have a couple of people at 'point' and 'cover point' as well—eh?"
Breakfast of ship's biscuit and corned beef, washed down with a "pull" from the water-bottles, lasted ten minutes, and then everyone set to work again.
Williams suggested that they had better start lopping down the bushes below Saunderson's two breast-works.
"It would give us a better chance if they tried to rush us, sir."
"Now, lads," sang out the Commander, "get your axes and knives and cut down the bushes in front of you—make a clear sweep of them."
They started hacking and cutting, and in half an hour had cleared three or four yards along their front, when suddenly, bang! went a shell, bursting just below them, and the fragments went shrieking overhead.
Every man "ducked", then ran back up the slope, seized his rifle, and lay down behind his own breast-work.
"Whew!" whistled the Commander, "that is their game, is it?"