n through the
swirling smoke, swaying and struggling, threshing and splashing in the
liquid mud. He was just conscious of Courtenay shouting something about
"Get back," of his being thrust violently back into the wide trench, of
two or three figures crowding in after him, cursing and staggering and
shooting back into the Frying Pan, of Courtenay's voice shouting again
to "Stand clear," of a knot of men scrambling and heaving at something,
and then of a deafening "Rat-tat-tat-tat," and the streaming flashes of
a machine-gun. It stopped firing after a minute, and Rawbon, flattened
back against a corner of the trench wall, heard an explanation given by
a gasping private to Courtenay and another mud-bedaubed officer who
appeared mysteriously from somewhere.

"Flung a shower o' bombs an' rushed us, sir," said the private. "They
was over a-top o' us 'fore you could say 'knife.' Only two or three o'
us that wasn't downed and was able to get back out o' the Leak an'
across the Pan to here."

"We stopped them with the maxim," said Courtenay, "but I suppose
they'll rush again in a minute."

He and the other officer conferred hastily. Rawbon caught a few words
about "counterattack" and "quicker the better" and "all the men I can
find," and then the other officer moved hurriedly down the trench and
men came jostling and crowding to the end of the Handle, just clear of
the corner where it turned into the Pan. A few sandbags were pulled
down off the parapet and heaped across the end of the trench, the
machine-gun was run close up to them and a couple of men posted, one to
watch with a periscope, and the other to keep Verey pistol lights
flaring into the Frying Pan.

Two minutes later the other officer returned, spoke hastily to
Courtenay, and then calling to the men to follow, jumped the low
barricade and ran splashing out into the open hollow with the men
streaming after him. A burst of rifle fire and the shattering crash of
bombs met them, and continued fiercely for a few minutes after the last
of the counter-attacking party had swarmed out. But the attack broke
down, never reached the barricade beyond the Pan, was, in fact, cut
down almost as fast as it emerged into the open. A handful of men came
limping and floundering back, and Courtenay, waiting by the machine-gun
in case of another German rush, caught sight of the face of the last
man in.

"Rawbon!" he said sharply. "Good Lord, man! I'd forgotten--What took
you out the