or him.

Before they were clear of the wood, the rearmost files of the Reedshires
were in the trench; and when they reached the crest the trench floor was
covered with dead and wounded, and the victorious battalion was bombing
its way along the sinuous windings which curved off northward.

Far away to the east a tremendous fusillade told where the division on
their right was attacking Montauban; but Dennis's anxiety was to pick up
A Company again, and that was a difficult matter.

"Seen anything of Captain Dashwood?" he cried to a wounded Reedshire on
the fire-step, who was trying to staunch an ugly wound.

"No, sir. They went over on the left there with the Highlanders."

In the distance across the shell-torn ground behind the trench they saw
clumps of brown dots growing smaller and smaller, as our successful rush
carried us far into the enemy's lines, and there was nothing for it but
a long sprint to overtake them.

Even Dennis, fit as he was, and Hawke and Tiddler, both hard as nails,
were puffed and blown before they had run very far; and so confusing was
the maze of craters and battered trench-lines that Dennis suddenly
realised that he was alone.

The sing of bullets passed his ears, and the spurting up of the ground
in his immediate vicinity told him that the spot was "unhealthy"; and,
seeing an empty communication trench a few yards on the left, he jumped
down into it, reloaded his revolver, and went forward cautiously.

The trench, which had somehow escaped our bombardment, had been hastily
evacuated when we carried the third line; but, finding that it curved in
the direction where he had last seen those running figures, he followed
it until a clamour of voices ahead of him made him shrink behind the
angle of a bay as a mob of Germans came running towards him.

Dennis felt in his bomb sack and found he had three of those deadly
missiles left, and a grim smile twitched the corners of his compressed
lips.

"If they're bolting it means that our chaps are behind them," he thought
to himself. "If it's a counter-attack, a friendly dug-out wouldn't be a
bad place. But here goes, anyhow!" And, jumping on to the fire-step of
the bay, he lobbed a bomb into the trench about fifteen yards higher up,
where it burst with a loud report.

Then he sprang down, and, shouting loudly as though he had a whole
party at his back, he pitched another bomb, which burst as it touched
the ground.

His last bomb struck the si