CHAPTER VI BAGGING A SNIPER The village being within easy range of the German guns, its immunity from bombardment struck the officers of the battalion as rather strange. For a few days, it is true, the enemy might have been unaware that British troops were in occupation; but a German aeroplane, a dove-winged Taube, had been observed to fly over the place, and it could hardly be doubted that information of their presence had been carried to headquarters. All that the soldiers knew of warfare for two or three weeks was the dull boom of distant guns, the passage of ambulances occasionally and of supply wagons frequently, and the passing of railway trains conveying new howitzers and field guns along the line a mile or two away. The call to action came unexpectedly. One evening, just after supper, the men were ordered to parade in full marching kit. They overflowed from the little market square into the adjacent streets, and there they were inspected by the colonel, who passed up and down the ranks with an orderly carrying a lantern. When the inspection was finished, the colonel posted himself on a tub in the middle of the square. It was a dark night, and the flickering light of the lantern illuminated only the lower part of the colonel’s body, leaving his face in shade. "Now, men," he said, "we are going to take a spell in the trenches. We have several miles to march; there must be no straggling, or you’ll pitch into Jack Johnson holes in the road. No talking, no smoking. I know you’ll give a good account of yourselves. We’re a new battalion; we’ve got to make our name; and by George, we’ll do it!" The platoon commanders stifled an incipient cheer, and the battalion marched off into the night. Along the dark straight road they tramped, between lines of tall poplars that raised their skeleton shapes against the sky. For a mile or two nothing impeded their progress; then the advance guard came upon a deep cavity extending half across the road, and two men were told off to warn the succeeding ranks of the danger. Presently they passed through a hamlet which had been shattered by the German artillery. The sides of the road were heaped with bricks and blackened rafters, behind which were the jagged walls of roofless cottages. A little beyond this they were met by a staff officer, come to guide them to the trenches. Then they had to ease off to one side to allow the passage of the weary men they were relieving. At length they came to a small clump of woodland, and learnt that the trenches were on the further side of it. Section by section they passed into the shelter of the trees, stepping across trunks felled and split by shells, and slid noiselessly into the narrow zig-zag ditches where they were to eat and sleep and spend weary days and nights.