For a second, the boy lay perfectly still; then, to his utter amazement, he realized that he hadn’t been killed. On the contrary, the shock of that second whizz-bang seemed to have cleared his brain. He hauled himself up very cautiously; peered over the edge of the shallow trench. Just above him, the ground rose—two hundred yards of ground—littered with brown heaps—some of them moving—at the top of the slope, more bodies—hundreds of them—hanging grotesquely in the air. He dropped down again. . . . “How many of us got back, Haddock?” “Dunno, sir. Old Long. ’E’s just round the corner, sir.” “Well, you stop here. If you see anything coming, shoot at it!” The boy bent down; crawled along the trench; ran his head into a man’s knees. “Heasy on there,” growled Long Longstaffe. “Heasy on.” Then looking down, “Sorry, sir. Didn’t know it was you.” The boy gave his instructions; crawled on. Private Longstaffe arranged his elbows in the dirt; kicked his long legs behind him; cuddled the rifle-stock to his cheek. “Carn’t miss the sods from ’ere,” he said to himself. . . . And then, suddenly, he saw a cautious dot bob up on the near skyline. . . . § 8 “Blast it, oh, blast it. Get me a line, damn you.” O’Grady, binoculars to eyes, could see the gray figures crawling through the wire; could hear rifles crackling just below him. The man on his knees tapped key frantically. “F.X. Don,” tapped the man, “F.X. Don.” More gray figures came through the wire. On the left of the wire, up a little white road with trees on each side, came another line of gray figures; flung themselves down. O’Grady could see flame from their rifles, toy smoke puffs. “F.X. Don,” tapped the man, “F.X. Don.” The gray figures by the road were on their feet, running. “F.O.O.” throbbed the plate at the man’s eardrum, “F.O.O.” “Got ’em sir,” said the man to O’Grady, “will you speak?” O’Grady grabbed the receiver, and said, speaking very slowly and distinctly: “Esses—O—Esses. Do you understand?” “Esses—O—Esses” throbbed the plate at his ear. * * * * * Private Longstaffe, wrenching frantically at jammed breechbolt, heard a whirr as of homing pigeons over his head; was aware of white smoke puffs bursting among the gray figures all along the slope in front of him. . . . The breechbolt shot home at last, but when he lifted the rifle to his shoulder, peered through the V of the backsight, the gray figures had disappeared. PART SEVENTEEN THE SUICIDE CLUB § 1 At midnight between the 26th and 27th of September, 1915, two men faced each other across a chequered French table-cloth in the bare _salle à manger_ of an _estaminet_ at Beuvry.