s' ends. The instant
each man saw his own bundle well ignited, he reported "Lit!" and thrust
the fuse ends well into the soft mud. Being so waterproofed as to burn
if necessary completely under water, this made no difference to the
fuses, except that it smothered the sparks and showed only a curling
smoke-wreath. But the first sparks had evidently been seen, for the
bomb party heard shoutings and a rapidly increasing fire from the
German lines. A light flamed upward near the mine-crater. Ainsley said,
"Now!--, and take good aim." The men scrambled to their knees and,
leaning well over until they could see the black entrance of the mine
shaft, tossed their bundles of bombs as nearly as they could into and
around it. In the pit below, Ainsley had a momentary glimpse of half a
dozen faces, gleaming white in the strong light, upturned, and staring
at him; from somewhere down there a pistol snapped twice, and the
bullets hissed past over their heads. The party ducked back below the
ridge of earth, and as a rattle of rifle fire commenced to break out
along the whole length of the German line, they lit from their tinder
the fuses of a couple of bombs specially reserved for the purpose, and
tossed them as nearly as they could into the German trench, a score of
paces away. Their fuses being cut much shorter than the others, the
bombs exploded almost instantly, and Ainsley and his party leapt down
to the level ground and raced across to the wire.

By now the whole line had caught the alarm; the rifle fire had swelled
to a crackling roar, the bullets were whistling and storming across the
open. In desperate haste they threw themselves down and wriggled under
the wire, and as they did so they felt the earth beneath them jar and
quiver, heard a double and triple roar from behind them, saw the wet
ground in front of them and the wires overhead glow for an instant with
rosy light as the fire of the explosion flamed upwards from the crater.

At the crashing blast of the discharge, the rifle fire was hushed for a
moment; Ainsley saw the chance and shouted to his men, and, as they
scrambled clear of the wire, they jumped to their feet, rushed back
over the flat, and dropped panting in the shelter of the ditch. The
rifle fire opened again more heavily than ever, and the bullets were
hailing and splashing and thudding into the wet earth around them, but
the bank protected them well, and they took the fullest advantage of
its cover. Becaus