"All present?" inquires Simson.
It is discovered that M'Snape has not returned. Anxious eyes peer over
the parapet. The moon is stronger now, but it is barely possible to
distinguish objects clearly for more than a few yards.
A star-shell bursts, and heads sink below the parapet. A German bullet
passes overhead, with a sound exactly like the crack of a whip.
Silence and comparative darkness return. The heads go up again.
"I'll give him five minutes more, and then go and look for him," says
Simson. "Hallo!"
A small bush, growing just outside the barbed wire, rises suddenly
to its feet; and, picking its way with incredible skill through the
nearest opening, runs at full speed for the parapet. Next moment it
tumbles over into the trench.
Willing hands extracted M'Snape from his arboreal envelope--he could
probably have got home quite well without it, but once a Boy Scout,
always a Boy Scout--and he made his report.
"I went back to have a look-see into the crater, sirr."
"Well?"
"It's fair blown in, sirr, and a good piece of the sap too. I tried
could I find a prisoner to bring in"--our Colonel has promised a
reward of fifty francs to the man who can round up a whole live
Bosche--"but there were nane. They had got their wounded away, I
doubt."
"Never mind," says Simson. "Sergeant, see these men get some sleep
now. Stand-to at two-thirty, as usual.
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