He turned, took Burton by the arm, and guided him through an opening which had suddenly disclosed itself in the bramble hedge. A sentry stood aside; the party filed in. Burton found himself moving down a sharp declivity, which by and by opened out into a spacious cave, lit by a single candle-lamp. Two or three men got up from the stools on which they had been sitting. The floor was roughly boarded. A table stood in the centre. Along one side were a number of large wooden bins. "We sleep on them," said Hedley. "Rather stuffy quarters, you perceive." "Concentrated essence of earth and candle smoke," said Burton, sniffing. "Also bacon fat and the smell of our cooker. Sit down, you shall have something to eat and drink in a jiffy." "You won’t forget the wheel?" "No. Stanbridge, get that wheel put right." Among any score of British soldiers there will usually be found a factotum who can turn his hand to anything. It was not otherwise with these men of the Rutland Light Infantry. Having seen the work started, Hedley heaved a sigh of relief. "Now we can talk," he said. III "You heard about the night raid? Well, we were completely cut off from the rest by a counter attack, from the flank. We tried to bomb our way back, lost heavily, got all muddled up. There seemed to be a whole brigade of Huns between us and our lines, so the only thing to be done was to give them the slip, and dodge around in the hope of finding a weak spot where we might break through. There are only twenty-four of us left. We managed to keep together, and were lucky enough to escape the Huns; but of course we got hopelessly lost. Just before daylight, dead beat, we stumbled into the wood yonder, not caring much what happened to us. In the early morning an old French farmer found us there. My hat! we felt pretty bad when he told us we were deep in the enemy’s country, and a company of Huns billeted in his farm only half a mile away. Rummy, isn’t it?--he’s held on, working his farm in spite of everything, and the Huns don’t seem to have bothered him much." Here one of the men brought some freshly-fried bacon, biscuits, and light wine. "Fall to!" Hedley went on. "It was a tremendous bit of luck, old Lumineau’s finding us, because of this cave of his. It is on the outskirts of his farm, and he concealed here a lot of his spare stores when he had news that the Huns were coming up last September twelvemonth. The cave has had a history, it appears, and it’s lucky again that the Huns don’t know of it. The old farmer told me it used to shelter a famous band of outlaws centuries ago. During the Revolution a local nobleman’s family lived in it for months. More recently it has been a store for smugglers running goods across the Belgian frontier. We’re pretty safe here, though of course a strolling Hun may discover it any day, and then----" "How did you happen to be in the wood when I came down?"