“No.” The aquiline one was obviously working under extreme pressure. “You’ll get those from Trench later. This isn’t as much fun as pig-sticking, is it?” He leapt back into his car; whirled off down the road. Two minutes afterwards Peter—note-book on knee—was writing from orders Stark’s dictation. . . . § 5 The remainder of the afternoon resolved itself into a constant dispatching of orderlies, a constant running in and out to the jingling clicking telephone station. At half-past four, the aquiline one returned. Peter, instructed to report communication completed, found him closeted with a big vaguely seen man in the semi-dusk of yet another dug-out. At five o’clock, these two removed themselves. Said the Weasel: “What sort of a dug-out was the one in which you found him?” Said Peter: “Pretty good, sir.” Ordered the Weasel: “Then we’d better occupy it.” § 6 In that flimsy tin-roofed tunnel, hidden away in mud between brick walls, glass-doored at each end, perpetually illumined with guttering candles, Peter spent three days and three nights. Incredible things happened in that tunnel: equally incredible things in the farm above. Our own howitzers shook it till the glass-doors rattled to splinters: shells, screaming down out of nowhere, missed it by inches, plunging visibly through the shattered roof of the farm, extinguishing candles, shattering telephone wires. Men came to it—all sorts and conditions of men: orderlies and Generals, Colonels and battery commanders. Guardsmen, dizzy with shell-fumes, staggered down its steps, were given gas-capsules, departed. Murchison the Brigade Major came to it, sojourned with them two days. A weary officer of the Third Southdown Brigade, who had been shelled out of his position with the loss of two guns and twenty men, dropped down on its muddy floor and slept like a dog, cap under head, in his spurred field-boots. And always, Peter—in the dark forward compartment—sat by the telephone operator. Men were blown to bits above—(there were one hundred and twenty casualties in Le Rutoire during those three days): orderlies, sent out on cycles, failed to report, were never again heard of: men died at the batteries even as he spoke to the batteries: the farm rocked: lights went out: shelling stopped: shelling began again. But always, Peter Jameson was trying to explain over a wire which either carried four different voices or went absolutely dead, that Colonel Stark wanted fire directed here, that the Coldstreams reported two field-guns 200 yards South West of Metallurgique tower firing on G 24, that the Bois Hugo was full of M.G’s, that if Major Lethbridge couldn’t fire with A Battery, because A battery had three guns out of action, he must fire with B. . . .