Just before midnight the three men crept stealthily out of their trench, armed only with their bayonets, crawled under the barbed wire, and wriggled forward towards the pond. It was slow and tiring work, for the ground was much cut up by shell fire, and littered with fragments of shells, empty tins, and other rubbish. There was a certain advantage in the unevenness, in that it gave cover; but it also contained an element of danger, because there was a risk of their displacing something as they proceeded, and they knew that the slightest noise would provoke a fusillade from the enemy. The moon was not up, but the sky was spangled with stars, by whose feeble light they were able to distinguish objects on the ground within ten or a dozen paces. They heard the Germans talking and laughing in their trenches, and here and there a slight radiance marked the places where they had candles or lamps. Foot by foot they crawled on, Kenneth leading the way towards the angle of the trenches on the left. At last he came to a stop within a few feet of the parapet. The three men lay flat on the ground. For some moments Kenneth was not able to distinguish anything from the general murmur, but presently he realised that one man was reading aloud to the rest from a German newspaper. "The blockade of England. Great German success in the North Sea. An English merchantman of 245 tons laden with bricks was torpedoed in the North Sea yesterday, and seriously damaged. The starvation of England proceeds satisfactorily." "What, do the English eat bricks?" asked one simple soul. There was a laugh. "They have good teeth! Look at this picture," said another. "If the English bricks are harder than our war bread I pity them," said a third. "We needn’t cry ’God punish England’ any more." "Is there any news of sinking a grain ship?" asked a voice. "No," replied the reader. "Grain comes in big vessels; I expect the Americans won’t let their ships sail. We shall have America on our side soon." "Anything to shorten the war," said a man. "I’m tired of it. I want to get home to Anna and the children. The General said it would be all over by Christmas." "So it will, by next Christmas. I want to get back to the Savoy: I made £10 there the Christmas before last." "You won’t make it again. The English won’t have any money after this."