clapped it on his own head and pretended to help the loser to search.
"It was blame funny, I suppose," Rawbon told the lieutenant a few minutes after, as they moved from the spot. "Him chasin' round in the mud cussin' all blue about his 'blarsted cap'; and t'other fellow wi' the cap on his head and pretending to hunt for it, and callin' the rest to come help. I dessay I'll laugh some myself, if I remember it when I'm safe back about ten mile from here. Just at the moment my funny bone hasn't got goin' right after me expectin' to see that feller blowed to ribbons an' remnants. But them others—say, I've seen men sittin' comfortable in an armchair seat at a roof-garden vaudeville that couldn't raise as hearty a laugh at the prize antics of the thousand dollar star comedian, as them fellers riz on that cap episode."
"Well, it was rather funny, you know," said Courtenay, grinning a little himself.
"Mebbe, mebbe," said Rawbon. "But me—well, if you'll excuse it, I'll keep that laugh in pickle till I feel more like usin' it."
"You wanted to come, you know," said Courtenay. "But I won't blame you if you say you've had enough and head for home. As I told you before, this 'joy-riding' game is rather silly. It's bad enough us taking risks we have to, but——"
"Yes, you spoke that piece, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon, "but I want to see all there is on show now I'm here. Only don't expect me to shriek with hilarious mirth every time a shell busts six inches off my nose."
They had halted for a moment, and now another crackling string of light shells burst along the trench.
"There's another bunch o' humor arriving," said Rawbon. "But I don't feel yet like encoring the turn any;"
They moved on to a steady accompaniment of shell bursts and Courtenay looked round uneasily.
"I don't half like this," he said. "They don't usually shell us so at this time of day. Hope there's no attack coming."
"I agree with all you say, Loo-tenant, and then some. Especially about not liking it."
"I'm beginning to think you'd be better off these premises," said
Courtenay. "I ought to be with my company if any trouble is coming off.
And it might lead to questions and unpleasantness if you were found
here—especially if you're a casualty, or I am."
"Nuff sed, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon promptly. "I don't want that sort o' trouble for various reasons. I'd have an everlastin' job explaining to my dad what I was doin' in the front seats o' the firing line. It wouldn't just fit wi' my bein' a Benevolent Neutral, not anyhow."
"We're only about thirty or forty yards from the Germ trench in this bit," said Courtenay. "Here, carry my periscope, and when I'm talking to some of the men just take a look quietly."
But Rawbon was not able to see much when, a little later, he had a chance to use the periscope. For one thing the short winter day was fading and the light was already poor; for another any attempt to keep the periscope above the parapet for more than a few seconds brought a series of bullets hissing and zipping over, and periscope glasses in those days were too precious to risk for mere curiosity's sake.
"We'll just have a look at the Frying Pan," said Courtenay, "and then you'll have seen about the lot. We hold a bit of the trench running out beyond the Pan and the Germs are holding the same trench a little further along. We've both got the trench plugged up with sandbag barricades."
They floundered along the twisting trench till it turned sharply to the right and ran out into the shallow hollow of the Frying Pan. It was swimming in greasy mud, and across the far side from where they stood Rawbon could see a breastwork of sandbags.
"We call this entrance trench the Handle, and the trench that runs out from behind that barricade the Leak. There's always more or less bombing going on in the Leak, and I don't know if it's very wise of you to go up there. We call this the Frying Pan because—well, 'into the fire,' you know. Will you chance it?"
"Why, sure; if you don't mind, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon, "I might as well see—" He was interrupted by a sudden crash and roar, running bursts of flaring light, hoarse yells and shouts, and a few rifle shots from somewhere beyond the barricade across the Leak. The work of the next minute was too fast and furious for Rawbon to follow or understand. The uproar beyond the barricade swelled and clamored, and the earth shook to the roar of bursting bombs. In the Frying Pan there was a sudden vision of confused figures, dimly seen 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."
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