rious trafficking (them
was the very words I used) ... I not only caught the blighter, but I put
his light out.'

"'What?' he shouts, clutching my arm, 'you killed the poor brute.'

"'_We_ did--me and Tommy, and we found this here code in his fob,' said
I.

"With that I threw the little code book on the bed, and the old man,
after looking through it carefully (he could read German, our old man),
got out of bed and started dressing in a businesslike way.

"'Shut that door, McNab,' says he, 'and let me have the benefit of your
invaluable advice.'

"All of a sudden I was struck with a brilliant inspiration, and I let
the old Colonel have it for what it was worth.

"As it happened the old man thought a mighty lot of it--such a lot, in
fact, that by one o'clock that day he started to imagine the inspiration
had come from his own fertile brain. He liked to think that it was his,
and, Lord bless 'im, I don't grudge him the glory.

"After laying our heads together, the Colonel went back to the artillery
lines and spent three hours talking to the Battery Major, and I looted a
dozen three-pounder rockets of var-i-ous colours out of the stores. In
the afternoon the Colonel called all his officers together, and kept the
blighted motorcycle dispatch riders busy buzzing up and down the line
with messages, till late in the evening.

"'I have called you gentlemen together,' he says to his officer, 'in
order to ask you to corporate with me. I shall fire some rockets from
the slag heap to-night about ten o'clock. On the first of these signals
the Germans will open a very heavy cannonade on our trenches. I'll
trouble you to have your men all in the dug-outs, and under cover at a
quarter to ten!'

"That night, soon after the Colonel, Tommy and I started off for the
slag heap in the dark, taking with us a bundle of rockets. My idea was
at last going to be tested--what do you think it was, Sir?"

I discreetly pretended my utter inability to guess.

"Why, nothing more or less than to hoist these German blokes with their
own petard, so to speak. We were going to fool them by giving them
signals in their own code. Well, after stumbling and groping about for
half an hour," McNab continued, "we arrived at the spot near where we
had overlooked the spy.

"'I think this is the ledge from which I fell,' Tommy whispered as we
crawled on. The next instant the Colonel disappeared, and the little
procession came to an abrupt standstill. A