ad lost all count of time, and only knew that he had crossed
the strip of "No Man's Land" with his platoon, somehow, and was bursting
bombs mechanically along the German trench.

Turning round as he came to a narrow door on his left, he was surprised
for the moment to find the French corporal no longer at his elbow, and
his laugh of amusement as he entered alone sounded odd and hollow.

With abrupt suddenness he ran down a flight of thirty wooden steps
leading from the end of a short passage into a large hall, lit by
electric light.

The huge underground dug-out was empty, save for some wounded Germans in
bunks, and with a glance at the pictures on the walls, and the piano on
a platform, he ran towards another door at the far end.

"Great Scott! they've got a regular town here!" he exclaimed aloud,
gazing at the floor of the inner dug-out, which was quite thirty feet
below the level on which he stood. "More electric light, and cases of
ammunition enough for an army corps!"

"Perhaps you would like to count them, Dashwood?" said a mocking voice
behind him.

But before he could turn round a coward's blow flung him forward into
space. The electric lights went out, and while he was still falling he
heard the heavy slam of the shell-proof door boom out of the darkness
above him.

CHAPTER IX

In the Sniper's Lair

"You hound!" shouted the lad, as with great presence of mind he held his
right arm aloft with the last bomb tightly clutched in his fingers.

There was a moment of agonised suspense which seemed extraordinarily
protracted, and then he alighted, unhurt, on a pile of blankets, the
unexploded bomb still in his hand!

"Thank Heaven!" were his first words as he lay, his heart beating
furiously and his overwrought frame quivering from the shock.

The atmosphere of the vault--for it was nothing less--was close and
stuffy, and there was a greasy smell in the still air, emanating from
some lubricant used to protect the stocks of spare rifles which he was
presently to discover.

"By Jupiter! if this bomb had gone off down here there wouldn't be much
of me left," he muttered, gathering himself up and remembering that he
had placed a spare torch in one of his breast pockets.

He was thankful then that he had not had time to change his tattered
tunic, and, drawing it out, he pressed the button and played the bright
beam up and down the vault.

It was one of those marvellous underground constructions fo