That night, when every occupant of his dug-out had at long last dropped off to sleep, Bill lay awake, tingling with excitement. Striking a match with the utmost caution, he fished out from his tunic pocket an enormous clasp-knife, which he opened. Then he lit a piece of candle-end and, shading it carefully with his hand, he leant over the sleeping form of his mate; but all he could see was a tightly rolled and shapeless cocoon. Alf's method of using his blanket left Bill no possible chance of getting at the string which bore the Button. One of the men stirred in his sleep, and Bill, extinguishing his light, gave himself up to slumber in a very disturbed state of mind. Come what might, by some means or other he must get that Button in time to prevent No. 9 Platoon from being let into the front line by its present commander. Next day, things became worse than ever. Mr. Stockley was detailed to take out a working-party consisting of his own platoon and to dig a length of trench behind the British lines. He took this opportunity of beginning the process of sweating the fat off Alf and Bill. He himself, with his coat off and his immense arms bare to the elbow, was doing two men's work; and he made it his personal duty to see that Higgins and Grant did at least two men's work between them. At the end of the day's work both men were stiffer than they had dreamt possible; they went through a pantomime expressive of acute agony, which Stockley saw--as he was intended to. He laughed. "Thank me later," he said. "Stiff time coming in front line. Must be fit. May save your lives." And he fell his party in and marched it back to the lines. The position was fast becoming impossible. Bill's determination not to trust himself in the line under Stockley's command had become a raging obsession, and yet he could see no way of getting the Button. That night he morosely watched his unconscious friend making himself into a chrysalis for the night. "Alf," he said with guile, "don't you feel it 'orrid 'ot these nights, rolled up in a great thick blanket like that?" "I likes to be warm at night," answered a muffled voice from within the folds. "But it's so un'ealthy," urged Bill. Alf's tousled head and astonished face appeared at one end of the cocoon. "Ho!" he said suspiciously. "And since when 'ave you been troubling your 'ed about my 'ealth, eh?"