“Good-night, chum,” said the sentry. “Good-night, chum.” * * * * * Winterbourne was put on the party digging the sap out into No Man’s Land. The officer stopped him as he was entering the sap. “You’re one of the new draft, aren’t you?” “Yes, Sir.” “Wait a minute.” “Very good, Sir.” The other men filed into the sap. The officer spoke in low tones: “You can take sentry for the first hour. Come along, and don’t stand up.” The young crescent moon had risen and poured down cold faint light. Every now and then a Verey light was fired from the German or English lines, brilliantly illuminating the desolate landscape of torn irregular wire and jagged shell-holes. They climbed over the parapet and crawled over the broken ground past the end of the sap. The officer made for a shell-hole just inside the English wire, and Winterbourne followed him. “Lie here,” whispered the officer, “and keep a sharp lookout for German patrols. Fire if you see them and give the alarm. There’s a patrol of our own out on the right, so make sure before you fire. There’s a couple of bombs somewhere in the shell-hole. You’ll be relieved in an hour.” “Very good, Sir.” The officer crawled away, and Winterbourne remained alone in No Man’s Land, about twenty-five yards in front of the British line. He could hear the soft dull thuds of picks and shovels from the men working the sap and a very faint murmur as they talked in whispers. A Verey light hissed up from the English lines, and he strained his eyes for the possible enemy patrol. In the brief light he saw nothing but the irregular masses of German wire, the broken line of their parapet, shell-holes and débris, and the large stump of a dead tree. Just as the bright magnesium turned in its luminous parabola, a hidden machine-gun, not thirty yards from Winterbourne, went off with a loud crackle of bullets like the engine of a motor-bicycle. He started, and nearly pulled the trigger of his rifle. Then silence. A British sentry coughed with a deep hacking sound; then from the distance came the hollow coughing of a German sentry. Eerie sounds in the pallid moonlight. “Ping” went a sniper’s rifle. It was horribly cold. Winterbourne was shivering, partly from cold, partly from excitement. Interminable minutes passed. He grew colder and colder. Occasionally a few shells from one side or the other went wailing overhead and crashed somewhere in the back areas. About four hundred yards away to his left began a series of loud shattering detonations. He strained his eyes, and could just see the flash of the explosion and the dark column of smoke and débris. These were German trench mortars, the dreaded “minnies,” although he did not know it.