Appeared from the shadows, Gunner Seabright (“Poluski number one”), a fat-faced little man, clean-shaven, perpetually at grin. He carried a telephone case in his hand, another over his shoulder, a coil of wire. “Got any earth-pins?” asked Peter. “Aye, aye, sir.” Seabright had at one time in his chequered career been in the Navy. “Two of them.” “Come on then.” They climbed the fence at the back of the garden; stumbled across the colliery tram-lines; followed a red wire up the gritty front of the huge slag-cone. Light was just breaking, a glimmer of dawn over cloudy skies. Not a breath of wind stirred anywhere. “Hot work, sir,” commented the telephonist. “Damned hot,” said Peter. They made a flat platform of slag running round the peak of the cone; followed it half way round. “Going to observe from outside, sir?” “Yes. This’ll do. Connect up, will you?” “Aye, aye, sir.” Seabright opened his telephone case; drove the earth pin into the slag; connected it to his instrument; scraped the insulation from the red wire they had been following; screwed it home; began to buzz. “··-· -··- -·· (F. X. D.)” buzzed Gunner Seabright “··-· -··- -·· (F. X. D.) Hallo there? Dugout? Is that you Pirbright? Then why the yell don’t you answer quicker?” As he had only called twice, the question was pure swank. Peter tested the line; wandered off round the Fosse. Already it was alive. Officers everywhere, some ensconced at the end of deep burrows, peering out over the plain; some clambering up the pathways at the back; some standing about at the mouths of their caves; and at the very top, thirty feet above Peter’s head, among a perfect jumble of wires, two Frenchmen—operators for the heavy battery just visible on the plain below, gesticulating and shouting at their strange-looking telephone. “_Mais non_,” Peter heard, “_mais non. On ne voit rien. Rien je vous dis. . . . Alors dans une demi-heure, mon Commandant._” “Their Major’s evidently not in a hurry,” thought Peter. He was accosted by a serious-eyed Captain of Sappers. “Who are you observing for?” “First Corps.” “Well, you can’t get inside. It’s full.” “I know. My telephonist is just round the corner.” “Good. We shan’t see much from here.” “No.” Peter went back to his telephonist. Now, the glimmer of dawn turned to a faint dark blue radiance. Nothing stirred on the plain below. Light grew; revealing the silent village street, the churchyard, the ruined chapel of “Our Lady of Consolation” battered among her poplars, the long tree-girt stretch of the Hulluch Road. Beyond, like a dun still sea streaked with unmoving foam, lay the trenches. Beyond them, mist. Peter drew out his map; unslung his glasses; threw away the stump of his cigar.