The lower part of him from
the waist downwards had been blown away; and, stooping down, Dennis
gently disengaged the Iron Cross from the breast of his tunic.

"Poor chap!" he muttered. "This will be something for dear little
Billy." And then he looked round.

The trench existed no longer as a trench, and terrified, trembling men
crawled from among the tumbled sandbags, and out of nooks and corners
where they had lain.

The barbed wire looked like a parrot's cage that had been run over by a
motor-car, and everyone saw that the position was untenable.

So No. 6 Company, or all that was left of it, hurried towards a wood
between Biaches and the hill of La Maisonette, and no sooner had they
cleared the broken trench than the first wave of the French poured over
it.

The ferret-faced German captain had made his way back to headquarters
just before the bombardment began. He had a cousin on the staff, from
whom he hoped to borrow a spare pair of spectacles to replace his own.

He secured the glasses, and found that he could not have arrived at a
better moment, for a message had just been received from the Divisional
General!

"You are the very man we want," said Colonel Schlutz. "There is a spy in
No. 6 Company masquerading under the name of Carl Heft. It is very
serious and altogether extraordinary. The real Carl Heft was wounded by
a shell splinter, and has turned up again over there. The spy actually
took down the general's order for our move, and he must be discovered at
once. He is young, and he wears brown boots."

"Himmel! I know the fellow!" exclaimed the captain. "He shall be
arrested within the next twenty minutes!"

But the French fire began, and it was impossible to move; and they
cowered in their temporary shelter, expecting death.

"Where is the company?" demanded its captain when the 75's ceased, and
he encountered a wounded man dragging himself to the rear.

"The survivors have retired into yonder wood, Herr Captain. May I beg a
draught of water from your bottle?"

"You will get some farther back; I have no time now," was the brutal
response. And, grinning with secret satisfaction, he ran in the
direction of the tree-tops, hugely elated as every stride carried him
farther away from the ruined village, against which he knew the
counter-attack would be delivered.

As soon as he judged himself to be out of danger he skulked among the
trees for more than an hour. He was in no hurry to find his men;