front of the line, and the soldier on Dennis's left
had the misfortune to leave his rifle-butt sticking out in advance of
his feet.

The captain tripped over it, ripped out an oath, and confronted the man.

"Clumsy hound!" he hissed, dealing him a sounding box on the ears. "Let
that teach you to be careful in the future." And he deliberately spat
three times in the offender's face.

Dennis's blood boiled at the coarse indignity, but the man stood rigid
without the slightest sign of resentment; and when the beast had passed,
he quietly wiped his face with his chalk-stained sleeve.

A sharp command came down the line, everyone turned to his right, and
away they shuffled--that grey-green battalion, with Dennis in the middle
of them!

For a long distance they stumbled mechanically through trenches and a
labyrinth of mystifying communications, until the head of the column
reached a light railway, where a train of open trucks was waiting.

The sound of escaping steam mingled with the perpetual thunder of guns,
and the train seemed to stretch away in never-ending perspective along a
chalk cutting.

Hoping against hope to the last minute that something would happen,
almost praying in his heart that one of those whistling shells might
fall in their midst and, tearing up the lines, so stop their going, he
realised how lonely one can be even in the midst of a crowd.

Already the leading companies were entraining, and a hum of voices rose
as the non-commissioned officers drove the men like sheep, with their
rifles held crosswise, now and then pounding some bungler in the ribs
with the butt end.

Even if he had been able to slip aside, he knew that to stay in that
place was to court certain discovery; and now no alternative was left
him, as half a dozen shouting sergeants cut off his retreat, and with a
wildly beating heart Dennis Dashwood climbed up into the nearest truck
with a herd of unwashed, unshaven enemies, packed tightly almost to
suffocation.

Then he grasped the side of the wagon as a great jolt ran along the
train from end to end, and the couplings tightened.

The 307th Reserve Battalion was on its way to fight the French, and
Dennis was going with them!

CHAPTER XXVII

On the Part Dennis Played in the Recapture of Biaches

It was growing dark now, and the rolling country through which they
passed became rapidly blurred. The white excavations that here and there
marked the presence of a trench