But their officer and sergeant had other and more imperative ideas as to their immediate program. “Pick up any of those picks and spades you see lying about,” ordered the sergeant, “and try’n get this trench into shape a bit. The rest of you get on to those sandbags and pile ’em up for a parapet. Sharp, now, every man there. You, Pug, get along with it, bear a hand. That arm of yours all right? If it isn’t you’d best shove along back to the rear.” CHAPTER IX A SIDE SHOW Although Pug and Kentucky were not allowed to go and look for their lost chum, and in fact did not know for long enough what had happened to him, the tale of that happening, I think, fits best in here. It is perhaps all the more worth the telling because it is a sample of scores of incidents that may never be heard of outside the few who participated in them, but are characteristic of one of the most amazing features of the New Armies--and that, mark you, is rather a big word, remembering we are speaking of something which itself is nothing but one huge amazing feature--the readiness and smoothness with which it has fallen into professional soldiering ways and the instinct for fighting which over and over again it has been proved to possess. And by fighting instinct I do not mean so much that animal instinct which every man has hidden somewhere in his make-up to look out for himself and kill the fellow who is trying to kill him, but rather that peculiar instinct which picks a certain corner of a trench as a key to a local position, which knows that if a certain bit of ground can be taken or held it will show much more than its face value, which senses the proper time to hang on and the right moment to risk a rush. These, of course, are the instincts of leadership, and these are the instincts which the New Army has shown it possesses, not only in its officers and non-coms., but time and again--in innumerable little-known or unknown incidents of battle that have been lost in the bigger issues--in the rank and file, in privates who never were taught or expected to know anything about leadership, in men brought up to every possible trade, profession and occupation except war. One can only suppose it is an instinct deep rooted in the race that has lain dormant for generations, and only come to life again in the reviving heat of war. It will be remembered that Larry became separated from his two friends in their rush on the German line, and just as they reached the remains of the barbed wire before the German trench. For the greater part the wire had been uprooted and swept away by the storm of British shells and mortar bombs, but here and there it still remained sufficiently intact to make a difficult and unpleasant obstacle.