Their first loss threw a cloud upon the spirits of the men. But it did not lessen their resolution. Direct knowledge, slight though it was at present, of the grim realities of war braced their courage. Already they had a comrade’s death to avenge. To the more thoughtful of them the dead man represented a blow struck at their country, and they saw more clearly than before that it was their country’s service that had called them here. Their spell in the trenches was to last two days. They were days of inaction, discomfort, tedium. Apart from intermittent sniping the Germans made no movement. The Rutlands kept incessant watch on them, with no relaxation until the fall of night. Even then they were not at ease. Sniping was kept up fitfully through the night, and they learnt that even in the darkness there was peril is rising to stretch their cramped limbs. At dusk on the first day a man was slightly wounded. These sneaking tactics, as they considered them, on the part of an unseen enemy worried and irritated the men. Whenever a shot was heard, they tried to estimate its direction, but their guesses were so contradictory that no definite opinion could be arrived at. On one occasion Kenneth tried to calculate the distance of the marksman by noting the interval that elapsed between the whistling sound of the bullet and the subsequent report of the rifle; but neither his data nor his watch were sufficiently accurate to give him much satisfaction. The one thing that seemed certain was that the night sniping was done somewhere behind the lines. When the battalion was relieved, and returned to billets for a couple of days’ rest, officers and men talked of little but the sniping. They thought that nothing could be more demoralising, having as yet had no experience of heavy gun-fire. The officers discussed the possibility of getting hold of the snipers, and determined to take serious steps to that end on their next turn of duty at the trenches. An opportunity seemed to offer itself on their second day back. There had been a good deal of sniping overnight, and in the morning Kenneth happened to notice what appeared to be a bullet-hole on the inner side of the parapet. He at once called Captain Adams’ attention to it. "That’s proof positive," said the captain. "The sniper is behind us." "It seems odd that he should fire on the mere chance of hitting somebody, for of course he can’t take aim in the dark," said Kenneth. "He’s got our range, of course, knows we’ve no rear parapet yet, and guesses that we move about more freely after dark. But we ought to be able to locate him now. Stick your bayonet carefully into the hole, Amory; we’ll get a hint of the direction of the bullet’s flight."