Bill never allowed his imagination to tempt him beyond this point. Sufficient for the day was the miracle thereof. Let him once get hold of the Button and he and Eustace would not be at any loss what to do. Only, behind and beyond his earth-shaking schemes for the good of his country was one very definite and private project closely connected with his vanished handmaid Lucy and his interrupted supply of beer. But this idea was never allowed to encroach upon his mind too much; he never forgot that before he could realize it, broader issues were to be dealt with.
On the following day the battalion moved up into the support line and settled down into its new dug-outs with the speed that only comes with experience. During the relief there was a certain amount of shelling going on, but there were no casualties. "C" Company was distributed to its dug-outs without undue fuss. Captain Richards, going the round of his company, gave a word of advice.
"Get what sleep you can, you men," he said. "They're very jumpy to-night in the front line, and you may have to tumble out at any minute. Keep your equipment by you and your boots on."
Bill and Alf were allotted with four others to a small dug-out. Bill, whose mind was still bent on his single aim, piloted his friend into a recess in which there was room for two only; and all six loosening their tunics and the belts of their equipment, settled themselves to sleep. Bill, who had determined to lie awake watching his chance, was the first man to go to sleep; and, as the irony of fate would have it, Alf selected this time of all others to turn upon his back and remain in that position. His opened tunic fell away from his neck, and the talisman lay in the little hollow between his collar-bones—the easiest of preys for the patient and watchful conspirator aforesaid. A couple of hours passed in which nothing could be heard in the dugout but a nasal sextet of harmony and power, to which the guns far above supplied a desultory obbligato.
At length a cautious footfall sounded on the stair, and Sergeant Lees appeared. He flashed his electric torch round the dug-out, then he went to each of the recumbent forms on the floor and shook them.
"You four," he whispered, careful not to wake the two in the recess, of whom he could see nothing but boot-soles. "Come up to Company H.Q. at once. The Captain's got a job for you. Quiet, now."
But quiet as they were, they woke Bill. He sat up dazedly, wondering where the others had gone. He was seized with a wild panic. Had they missed him out by accident? Ought he to follow? Then he realized that he was not quite alone. Alf, who had taken the bass part in the recent sextet, was maintaining it as a solo with undiminished vigor.
Grant struck a match and held it above his head, and realized that here at last was his opportunity. He was alone with Alf in the dug-out—and there, before his eyes, was the longed-for Button. Trembling with excitement, he fished out his haversack and produced an ancient and depressed-looking piece of candle, lit it, and stuck it on a beam. Then he drew his bayonet, and leant over his friend. Cautiously, not daring to breathe, he inserted the point of his weapon beneath the string that bore the talisman. One sharp cut, and the Button would be his. His hand shook on the handle of the bayonet so violently that the point rattled on Alf's collar-bone; and Alf's eyes opened.
It must have been sufficiently terrifying to him, awaking from a deep sleep, to find a grimy man kneeling over him in the eerie light of a sputtering candle-end, and holding a naked bayonet to his throat. He lay as still as death, and his round blue eyes widened until they seemed to protrude from their sockets.