attery was shelling the enemy from the wood on the left, and
the Germans were replying with "crumps," which luckily all went wide.

"Seen anything more of that sniper that picked Marshall and Brown off
last night?" questioned the captain.

"Not likely, sir. I got 'im 'arf an hour after we took over the relief,"
grinned the marksman of A Company, pointing with an oily finger to a
fresh notch cut on the rifle stock. "He tumbled out of the willer tree
flat, same as if you chucked a kipper from the top of a bus."

Dashwood smiled, and the smile was reflected with interest in the
wizened, mahogany-coloured face that looked up at his own from under the
rim of the steel helmet.

"You're a terrible chap, Hawke," he said. "How many does that make?"

"Seventeen with the rifle, sir, but I've kept no tally of all I've done
in wiv the bayonet," and he caressed his beloved weapon.

"Don't get up, Hawke," said his officer, moving along the trench. "I'm
only going to take a squint at the beggars," and as the private dropped
back into his seat again, Bob Dashwood put his foot on the fire step and
raised his head above the parapet.

He looked across a broken waste, full of shell holes and mine craters,
with a line of barbed wire fencing that followed the curve of the white
enemy trench capped by sandbags.

The marksman, having got rid of an imaginary speck of rust that had
troubled his soul, replaced the bolt, and was putting away the oil rag,
when there was a sharp stifled gasp, followed by a slithering fall, and
Captain Dashwood lay in a heap among the white wet mud at the bottom of
the trench. His cap had spun round and dropped into a sump, and the
blood was pouring down his face and neck as Hawke reached him.

"'Strewth, he's dead, and it's my fault!" he moaned, as a sergeant and
several other men ran up.

"It was nobody's fault but his own," said the sergeant savagely. "I've
warned him a dozen times--and he's not dead, either. Pass the word
there. We must get him down to the aid post sharp."

While Hawke supported the battered head upon his knee the sergeant
hastily applied a field dressing, and when a couple of bearers came
running along the communication trench they laid the wounded man
carefully on the stretcher, Hawke watching the receding figures with a
dazed look until the angle hid them from view.

"Now, you rotter, I've got to get you set!" he muttered, bending down
and peering into the periscope with his rifle