“Hark at ’em,” said Vickers, as another shell howled over, and burst noisily a hundred yards clear. “They’re laying for us all right this trip. Pray the Lord they don’t lob one into this pile—the gas-shells especially. That would fairly hang up the job; and there are Heaven knows how many batteries waiting to send in their waggons for the stuff now.” “They got my lorry,” said the A.S.C. man. “Wrecked it and killed the driver.” “Hard luck,” said Vickers. “Hasn’t blocked the road, I hope?” “No; spilt the shells all over the place, but didn’t explode any. We cleared the road.” “Don’t forget,” said Vickers anxiously, “to tell me if there’s any of the load missing. It’ll tie me up in my figures abominably if you deliver any short.” He broke off to shout at the men below, “Get along there. Move out those empty ones. Come along, another six. Pass the word for another six, there.” The shelling eased off for a couple of hours after that, and by then the last of the lorries had gone, and their place in the road outside and along the dump track had been taken by long lines of ammunition waggons from the batteries and the Divisional Ammunition Column. Every officer or N.C.O. who came in charge of a batch brought in the same imperative orders—to waste no minute, to load up, and to get to the gun line at the earliest possible moment, that action was brisk, and the rounds were wanted urgently. There was no need to report that action was brisk, because the dump was quite near enough to the line for the steady, unbroken roar of gun-fire, to tell its own tale. The sound of the field guns in the advanced positions came beating back in the long, throbbing roll of drum-fire, and closer to the dump, to both sides of it, in front and rear of it, the sharp, ear-splitting reports of the heavies crashed at quick intervals. The dump was the centre of a whirlwind of activity. The ammunition waggons came rumbling and bumping in round the curved track, the drivers steering in their six-horse teams neatly and cleverly, swinging and halting them so that the tail of each waggon was turned partly in to the piled boxes, and the teams edged slanting out across the road. The moment one halted the drivers jumped down from the saddles, the lead driver standing to his horses’ heads, the centre and wheel running to help with the work of wrenching open the ammunition boxes and cramming the shells into the pigeon-hole compartments of the waggons. The instant a waggon was filled the drivers mounted and the team pulled out to make way for another.