A telephonist at another table commenced to take and write down a message. It came from the forward trench on the left, and merely said briefly that the attack on the center was spreading to them and that they were holding it with some difficulty. The message was sent up to the O.C. "Whoever the O.C. may be," as the sergeant said softly. "If the Colonel was upstairs when that shell hit, there's another O.C. now, most like." But the Colonel had escaped that shell and sent a message back to the left trench to hang on, and that he had asked for reënforcements. "He did ask," said the sergeant grimly, "but when he's going to get 'em is a different pair o' shoes. It'll take those messengers most of an hour to get there, even if they dodge all the lead on the way." As the minutes passed, it became more and more plain that the need for reënforcements was growing more and more urgent. The sergeant was standing now at the open door of the cellar, and the noise of the conflict swept down and clamored and beat about them. "Think I'll just slip up and have a look round," said the sergeant. "I shan't be long." When he had gone, the signaler rose and closed the door; it was cold enough, as he very sensibly argued, and his being able to hear the fighting better would do nothing to affect its issue. Just after came another call on his instrument, and the repair party told him they had crossed the neutral ground, had one man wounded in the arm, that he was going on with them, and they were still following up the wire. The message ceased, and the telephonist, leaning his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands, was almost asleep before he realized it. He wakened with a jerk, lit another cigarette, and stamped up and down the room trying to warm his numbed feet.