nd, they took their places in the trench and
waited.

"Are you certain it's gas?" said Dennis to Tiddler, who had sounded the
alarm in their front, for beyond the parapet there was a strange
stillness, and the night was as black as your hat.

"Yes, sir; I see it right enough, just as their last flare died down. I
saw it at Hill 60, and I've 'ad some. It'll be 'ere in a tick."

But the enemy was impatient that night, and on a sudden a group of
star-shells burst overhead, lighting everything up brilliantly, and
revealing a long line of grey figures advancing stealthily.

"How do we go now?" inquired Wetherby, as another bunch of star-shells
went up. "Do we wait until they're on top of us?"

"That depends on Bob's judgment," replied Dennis, making himself heard
with some difficulty through the flannel folds of his mask; and while he
was speaking there came the shrill signal for "ten rounds rapid."

As the Lee-Enfields crashed out our machine-guns began to hammer, and
the boy fresh out from England felt a fierce thrill of exultation seize
him, for this was the real thing at last--the thing he had been longing
for so eagerly!

The long grey line seemed to shiver in front of the machine-guns, and
great swathes of the enemy went down. But our trench was on a ridge, and
the rear ranks filling up the gaps with a precision that astonished
young Wetherby, the German line began to mount the slope, breaking into
the double.

Dennis suddenly gripped his arm.

"Yes, what is it?" cried the boy, as the "Cease fire" blew and was
immediately followed by another signal.

"Reedshires, get over!" shouted Dennis. "That's what it is. Good old
Bob! He's a beggar for the cold steel. Come on, Wetherby! There's a fine
bit of free wheel for us--all down hill and a walk over at the bottom.
Charge, boys, charge!"

Looking like demons suddenly gone mad, the battalion let go a muffled
yell, and tore down the slope to meet those other demons, still more
hideous in the steel-faced masks they wore as a protection against their
own gas; and at the end of a dozen strides brown and grey mingled with a
terrific shock.

"Jove, what a ripping scrum!" laughed Wetherby, as he and Dennis plunged
into the struggling mass of men; and when his revolver was empty he
wrenched a Mauser and bayonet from one of the enemy and used them.

The Reedshires were fresh, and made up for that lost time in billets,
yielding not an inch, but forcing the Germans farth