e hole, a square
opening, evidently the entrance to a covered communication trench.

"Wait a moment!" he shouted, shouldering back the next man up, who in
his excitement was about to plunge in; and then he heard the bomb burst
below, and a shower of earth and fragments of clothing bespattered the
pair of them, a piece of the bomb making an ugly gash on the man's
cheek.

Then Dennis sprang down, regardless of the fumes. At the bottom of the
steps he was conscious of treading on something soft, but did not stay
to examine it, for a ray of light filtering in from a fissure in the
roof showed him dark forms scurrying away in the distance along the
boarded passage.

The hand-grenade had got a move on the enemy, and, followed by a dozen
men of the platoon, he led the way, gripping his rifle, and loosing a
couple of rounds from the hip as he ran.

One of the bullets evidently found its mark, for a man lay writhing on
the ground where another passage turned off at right angles. The man
tried to seize his legs, but instantly let go his hold with a hoarse cry
as Tiddler's bayonet settled all disputes, and Dennis darted round the
angle.

The passage ended in a strange place; a large dug-out which had been
partially unroofed by one of our shells earlier in the morning, and knee
deep amid the loose earth which had poured in, half filling it, twenty
Germans turned at bay, under the command of a very tall officer.

There were only eight men with Dennis, for the other four were still
groping their way somewhere behind in the darkness of the passage, and
the young lieutenant realised in a flash of time that he was seriously
outnumbered and must act promptly.

A big sergeant jumped at him with a shout, but before the lunging
bayonet had crossed his own, Dennis fired and shot the man dead.

"Put your hands up and surrender!" he said sternly in German to the
rest; and the first to obey was the tall officer, who came scrambling
over the loose earth with both arms outstretched.

"We are your prisoners, sir," he said, holding his revolver as though he
were presenting the butt to Dennis. And the men of the British platoon
lowered their bayonets with disappointment in their faces.

It meant some of their number escorting the prisoners to the rear, they
knew, and that was not the hope they had had in their hearts.

But their disappointment was short-lived, for, as the tall officer came
within a stride of the young lieutenant, he sud