thoughts of the dead man so close beside him disturbed him vaguely,
although he had never given a thought to the scores of dead he had seen
behind the trench and that he knew were scattered thick over the
'neutral' ground where they had fallen in the first charge. But this
man had been one of his own company and his own section--it was
different about him somehow. Yet of course Sapper Duffy knew that the
dead must at times lie where they fall, because the living must always
come before the dead, especially while there are many more wounded than
there are stretchers or stretcher-bearers. But all the same he didn't
like poor old 'Jigger' Adams being left there--didn't see how he could
go home and face old 'Jigger's' missus and tell her he'd come away and
left 'Jigger' lying in the mud of a mangel-wurzel field. Blest if he
wouldn't have a try when they were going to give Jigger a lift back. A
line of men, shirt-sleeved like himself and carrying spades in their
hands, moved out past him. An officer led them, and another with
Sapper Duffy's section officer brought up the rear, and passed along
the word to halt when he reached Daffy. 'Here's the outside man of my
lot,' he said, 'so you'll join on beyond him. You've just come in, I
hear, so I suppose your men are fresh?'

'Fresh!' said the other disgustedly. 'Not much. They've been digging
trenches all day about four miles back. It's too sickening. Pity we
don't do like the Boches--conscript all the able-bodied civilians and
make 'em do all this trench-digging in rear. Then we might be fresh
for the firing line.'

'Tut, tut--mustn't talk about conscripting 'em,' said Duffy's officer
reprovingly. 'One volunteer, y'know--worth ten pressed men.'

'Yes,' said the other, 'but when there isn't enough of the "one
volunteer" it's about time to collar the ten pressed.'

Two or three flares went up almost simultaneously from the enemy's
line, the crackle of fire rose to a brisk fusillade, and through it ran
the sharp 'rat-at-at-at' of a machine-gun. The rising sound of the
reports told plainly of the swinging muzzle, and officers and men
dropped flat in the mud and waited till the sweeping bullets had passed
over their heads. Men may work on and 'chance it' against rifle fire
alone, but the sweep of a machine-gun is beyond chance, and very near
to the certainty of sudden death to all in the circle of its swing.

The officers passed on and the new men began to dig.