In the hush which brooded over so much death--past and to come--a pause, it would seem, where the overhanging invisible demon of war reflected on its work--a mood of questioning, of revolt, came over the subaltern as he scribbled his pencilled lines. "On a quiet evening like this one cannot help moralising a little," he wrote, "wondering what it's all for and what we purchase with our death. This constant murdering of individuals on both sides who commit the crime of inadvertently showing an inch of head--how does this help matters?" The sharp crack of a rifle somewhere along the trench caused the officer to raise his head, listening with all his faculties at strain. The look-out at his side did not stir, no report followed the first, and he bent himself again to his letter. "I don't want to appear squeamish, fine-stomached in this rough game, but I don't think I shall ever be able to kill cold-bloodedly. I have been unfitted by long centuries of culture----" He was interrupted by the appearance of another officer, who squirmed himself round the traverse with a pronounced stoop necessitated by his uncommon tallness. The fair-moustached, boyish face of the new-comer was radiant with glee. "I say, Lennard!" he said impetuously. "Ripping luck! We've just bagged Fritz! You heard the shot just now? Folwell, my sergeant, got him. Been waiting for him for over an hour, without moving a muscle. Topping chap, Folwell. All he said was, 'Married life don't seem to 'ave spoilt my aim, sir.' You remember, he asked for leave to get married?" Lennard abandoned his letter and lit a cigarette. "I wonder whether Fritz was married," he said with a little malicious smile, the ideas recently in possession of him firing a final shot in a faint rearguard action with the returning everyday occupants. "Well, that's one more nuisance abated." "Rather!" said the other, seating himself and likewise lighting a cigarette. "Fritz must have bagged not less than a dozen of our chaps," he calculated, gazing reflectively at the thin spiral of tobacco smoke which ascended straight in the still evening air. "Well, he's gone, thank the Lord! and we got Hans yesterday and Karl the day before. I must have a pot at old Hermann. If we could bag him we might hope for a quiet life." Lennard nodded. Each one of the German snipers--if sufficiently lucky to carry on his profession for a day or two--acquired an individuality and a name. Hermann was an especially dangerous neighbour who lurked somewhere in a ruined cottage that lay between the lines where they bent away slightly from each other. He rarely fired except to kill, and hid himself so well that not one of the numerous patrols sent out had succeeded in discovering his lair.