He was awfully decent about it, and agreed to let me go, since I'd had the luck to spot it. As a matter of fact, he did the more important spotting himself. He twigged what I'd overlooked: a whacking big shell-hole, shallow but wide, about fifteen or twenty feet to one side of their sap-head; an absolutely ideal spot for cover, and no more than a hundred yards from the head of Stinking Sap. I decided to take Corporal Slade with me, because he's such a fine bomber, besides being as cool as a cucumber and an all-round good chap. You remember he was with me that time in Master Boche's trench. Somehow, the thing got round before tea-time, and the competition among the men was something awful. When Slade gave it out that I was taking all the men I wanted from No. 1 Platoon, there was actually a fight between one of my lot and a fellow named Ramsay, of No. 3 Platoon; a draper, I'll trouble you, and a pillar of his chapel at home. Then a deputation of the other Platoon Sergeants waited on "the Peacemaker," and in the end, to save bloodshed, I agreed to take Corporal Slade and one man from my own Platoon, and one man from each of the other three Platoons. To call for volunteers for work over the parapet with our lot is perfectly hopeless. You must detail your men, or the whole blessed Company would swarm out over the sticks every time, especially if there's the slightest hint of raiding or bombing. "The Peacemaker's" idea was that we must reach that shell-hole from the end of Stinking Sap, if possible, before the Boche started work in his new sap, because once he started he'd be sure to have a particularly sharp look-out kept, and might very well have a covering party outside as well. Before it was dark my fellows were champing their bits in Stinking Sap, fretting to be off. If one gave the beggars half a chance they'd be out in the open in broad daylight. But, of course, I kept 'em back. There was no reason why Boche should be in a violent hurry to start work, and I was most anxious he shouldn't suspect that we suspected anything. As it turned out, we were all lying in that shell-hole close to his new sap for three-quarters of an hour before a single Boche made a move. There was a fine rain all the time, and it was pitch dark. The only thing we didn't like was the fact that all the flares and parachute lights ever made seemed to be being sent up from the Boche line, right alongside this new sap. However, we lay perfectly still and flat, hands covered and faces down, and as long as you do that all the flares in the world won't give you away much, in ground as full of oddments and unevenness as that is.