The Sergeant turned and looked, and an exclamation broke from him at sight of the view over the ground beyond the ridge. Up to now that ground had been hidden by a haze of smoke from the bursting shells where our barrage was pounding steadily down. But for a minute the smoke had lifted or blown aside, and the Sergeant found himself looking down the long slope of a valley with gently swelling sides, looking right down on to the plain below the ridge. He scanned the lie of the ground rapidly, and in an instant had made up his mind. “Hold on there,” he ordered abruptly; “we’ll dig in here instead. Sling that machine-gun back in here and point her out that way. You, Lees, get ’er into action, and rip out a few rounds just to see you got the hang o’ it. Heave those dead Boches out; an’, Corporal, you nip back with half a dozen men and fetch along the tools and sandbags we left there. Slippy now.” The Corporal picked his half-dozen men and vanished, and the Sergeant whipped out a message-book and began to scribble a note. Before he had finished the rifle-fire began to rattle down along the line again, and he thrust the book in his pocket, picked up his rifle, and peered out over the edge of the hole. “There they go, Lees,” he said suddenly. “Way along there on the left front. Pump it into ’em. Don’t waste rounds, though; we may need ’em for our own front in a minute. Come on, Corporal, get down in here. Looks like the start o’ a counter-attack, though I don’t see any of the blighters on our own front. Here, you two, spade out a cut into the next shell-hole there, so’s to link ’em up. Steady that gun, Lees; don’t waste ’em. Get on to your sandbag-fillin’, the others, an’ make a bit o’ a parapet this side.” “We’re a long ways out in front of the rest o’ the line, ain’t we?” said the Corporal. “Yes, I know,” said the Sergeant. “I want to send a message back presently. This is the spot to hold, an’ don’t you forget it. Just look down—hullo, here’s our barrage droppin’ again. Well, it blots out the view, but it’ll be blottin’ out any Germs that try to push us; so hit ’er up, the Gunners. But——” He broke off suddenly, and stared out into the writhing haze of smoke in front of them. “Here they come,” he said sharply. “Now, Lees, get to it. Stand by, you bombers. Range three hundred the rest o’ you, an’ fire steady. Pick your marks. We got no rounds to waste. Now, then——”