"

"May be," said Sergeant Clancy, with bitter sarcasm, "it's yourself
that'll just be stepping up to the Colonel and saying friendly like to
him: 'Prickles, me lad, it's deep enough we've dug to lave us get out
to our German Gineral. 'Tisn't for you we're digging this trench,'
you'll be saying, ''tis for our own pleasure entirely.' You might just
let me know what the Colonel says to that."

"There's some talk," he said, a little further down the line, "of our
being relieved from here to-morrow afternoon. I've told you what the
Little Lad was saying about turning the sap party in to help here. It's
pretty you'd look clearing out to-morrow and leaving another battalion
to come in to take over your new trench and your new sap and your
German Gineral and the gold in his britches pocket together." And with
that parting shaft he moved on.

For the rest of that day and all that night work moved at speed, and
when the O.C. made his tour of inspection the following morning he was
as delighted as he was amazed at the work done--and that, as he told
the Adjutant, was saying something. Up to now he had known nothing of
the sap, merely expressing satisfaction--again mingled with
amazement--when he saw the entrance to the sap, lightly roofed in with
boards for a couple of yards and shut off beyond that by a curtain of
sacking, and was told that the men were amusing themselves making a
bomb-proof dug-out.

But on this last morning, when the sap had approached to within twenty
or thirty feet of the white head which was its objective, the Colonel's
attention was directed to the matter somewhat forcibly. He heard the
roar of exploding heavy shells, and as the "_crump, crump,_" continued
steadily, he telephoned from the headquarters dug-out in rear of the
support line to ask the forward trenches what was happening.

While he waited an answer, a message came from the Brigade saying that
the artillery had reported heavy German shelling on a sap-head, and
demanding to know what, where, and why was the sap-head referred to.
While the Colonel was puzzling over this mysterious message and vainly
trying to recall any sap-head within his sector of line, the regimental
Padre came into the dug-out.

"I've just come from the dressing station," he said, "and there's a boy
there, McRory, that has me fair bewildered with his ravings. He's
wounded in the head with a shrapnel splinter, and, although he seems
sane and sensible enough in other ways