oaching.

The trench was packed with men, all waiting. Those of the reserves who
were not yet in their places were pouring steadily up, and immediately
behind the front line Staff cars and motor cycles dashed backwards and
forwards; and overhead, where, oddly enough, the larks were trilling, an
English aeroplane was flying just above the scream of the shells.

Dennis saw it, and wondered how Claude Laval was faring; and as he
looked at his wrist-watch he saw that it was nearly six o'clock.

At that moment the most terrific bombardment the war had witnessed burst
with devastating fury upon the German lines. Nothing had been heard like
it, and men smiled grimly, knowing that their turn would come soon.

The C.O. left the bay, and walked along the front of his beloved
battalion from one end of it to the other; a quiet, keen-eyed English
officer, brave as a lion they all knew, but showing no trace of the
slightest excitement as his eye scanned the faces of the waiting men.

He had been appointed to the command when the Dashwoods' father was
given the brigade, and he realised that the brigadier expected great
things of his old battalion.

"I never saw a fitter lot," was his gratified comment as he returned to
the two brothers. "Heaven help the enemy yonder if our artillery has
only cleared the wire."

"It's sincerely to be hoped they have, sir," said Captain Bob dryly.
"There was a dickens of a lot of it. But we shall get through without a
doubt. Not long to wait now, for there go the trench mortars."

Mingling with the continuous roar of our guns came a still louder and
very insistent sound, to which they listened in silence, every officer
of the battalion with his eye on his watch.

"Well, good luck, old chap!" said Bob suddenly, gripping Dennis by the
hand. And the two brothers looked at each other with the same thought
behind the quiet confidence of their smile.

It might be the last time they would ever meet on earth, but they faced
the possibility without fear, and already a dense cloud of smoke,
released along our whole front, was shrouding the waiting line.

"Seven-thirty to the tick," said the C.O. "Reedshires--Get over!" And in
an instant the battalion was swarming out of its trench, and advancing
over the two hundred yards of broken ground which separated the brigade
from the enemy, with sloped arms.

It was terrible going, for the whole earth was honeycombed by craters
large and small; but out of the