"They were all right after that."
"Had you any excitement, Ayling?" asks Kemp. "I hear rumours that you
had two casualties."
"Yes," says Ayling. "Four of us went out patrolling in front of the
trench--"
"Who?"
"Myself, two men, and old Sergeant Carfrae."
"Carfrae?" Wagstaffe laughs. "That old fire-eater? I remember him at
Paardeberg. You were lucky to get back alive. Proceed, my son!"
"We went out," continues Ayling, "and patrolled."
"How?"
"Well, there you rather have me. I have always been a bit foggy as to
what a patrol really does--what risks it takes, and so on. However,
Carfrae had no doubts on the subject whatever. His idea was to trot
over to the German trenches and look inside."
"Quite so!" agreed Wagstaffe, and Kemp chuckled.
"Well, we were standing by the barbed wire entanglement, arguing the
point, when suddenly some infernal imbecile in our own trenches--"
"Cockerell, for a dollar!" murmurs Wagstaffe. "Don't say he fired at
you!"
"No, he did worse. He let off a fireball."
"Whew! And there you stood in the limelight!"
"Exactly."
"What did you do?"
"I had sufficient presence of mind to do what Carfrae did. I threw
myself on my face, and shouted to the two men to do the same."
"Did they?"
"No. They started to run back towards the trenches. Half a dozen
German rifles opened on them at once.
Pages:
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190