So they made themselves comfortable there, while the shells screamed overhead and shrapnel and bullets plugged into their modest earthwork. And surreptitiously they took stock of one another to see who was left. Many well-known faces were missing. Some they had seen go down in the rush. But there was always the hope that wounds might not be fatal. They scanned the ground they had covered. It was dotted with little heaps of hodden gray and their hearts went out to them. Some lay quite still. One raised his head slightly. “That’s Gillieson!” jerked Ray, and in a moment had crawled out of the trench and was worming his way to the fallen one. The others watched breathlessly, for a moment, then began to follow here and there, wherever a pitiful gray heap lay within possible reach. They dragged in a round dozen in this way, bound up their damages as well as they could with the little rolls of first-aid bandages stitched inside their tunics, gave them rum and water from their bottles, and rejoiced exceedingly over them without showing any slightest sign of it. All afternoon--and never surely was so long a day since Joshua stayed the sun while he smote the Amorites at Beth-horon--they lay in their trench with Death whistling shrilly overhead. They chatted with their new chums and got points from them, heard what had been doing, and learned what was to be done. And as soon as it was dark they all crept out over the front and forward, till word came to dig in and hold tight; and they dug for their lives as they had never dug in their lives before, with bullets singing over them in clouds, and the much-shelled village burning furiously on their right. It was hot work in every sense of the word and their bottles were empty. Someone collected an armful and crept along to a farmhouse in the rear to try for water. He came sprinting back in a moment with word that the place was full of Germans. A guffaw greeted his news as a number of their own kilties came running out towards them, waving their arms triumphantly. But there was something about them Ray did not like. They did not somehow look London Scottish to him. Perhaps it was their unweathered knees. “Who are you?” he shouted. “Scottish Rifles!”--with an accent that any Scot would have died rather than use. “Down them!” he yelled, and let fly himself, and the ‘Scottish Rifles’ withered away, some to earth and some into the smoke. It was when they were well under cover and were congratulating themselves on being fairly safe--as things went!--that a burly figure nearly fell in on top of Ray as he crawled about behind his men. “Hello there?” he shouted. “London Scottish? You’re to clear out of here and fall back.” “What the deuce----” and then a star-shell blazed out in front, and Ray, raking him with one swift glance from his white knees upwards, plucked his feet from under him and brought him down into the trench in a guttural swearing heap.