Now the wire rose from ground to poles; spanned a road yellow with mud; disappeared breast-high among tree-trunks. They pashed across; tested again; passed in among the trees; began fighting their way through the undergrowth along the lip of a zig-zag and water-logged trench. “Lucky we didn’t run her down there, sir,” grinned the Bombardier. “Damned lucky.” Already Peter felt dog-weary. Twice he stumbled, and Mucksweat helped him to his feet. Then fatigue reacted; the poison of over-strain distilled its poison of over-energy. The apprehension of overnight disappeared. . . . They worked their way through the wood to the hillside. In front, the world seemed asleep. From behind, came the occasional thud of a gun. A ’plane droned over, high in air. Below them, lay the Bois de Trônes, still black in the half-light: all along the fringe of it, they could see waiting infantry. The wire dipped into a dry trench; they followed it down-hill. They emerged from the trench—and the wire ended abruptly. “Call up the battery,” ordered Peter. . . . “Battery on, sir.” . . . He took the instrument: “Is Captain Sandiland there? . . . Hello—That you, Sandiland. . . . We’re at the edge of Trônes Wood. . . . All O. K. up to here. . . . What’s that? . . . No good trying to run her any further. . . . Quite. . . . I’ll leave Finlayson here. . . . You’d better send him up a linesman. . . . What’s that? . . . Oh, yes, I’m quite all right. Cheerio.” “Hadn’t you better leave Blenkinsop, sir,” suggested the Bombardier. “Why?” asked Peter. Finlayson’s lips tightened. “Blenkinsop’s a very good operator, sir.” “I know that as well as you do, Bombardier. What are you driving at?” “Well, sir, as N.C.O. of the party. . . .” “Sportsman!” thought Peter; and reversed an order for the first time. They left Blenkinsop at the instrument; made their way, three helmeted figures, across a road dark with slime and rotted leaves, past the waiting infantry into Trônes Wood. The wood still stank of putrefying flesh. Barbed wire looped the trailing undergrowth. Here a shell-axed tree leaned drunkenly against its bullet-pocked neighbour. There, fresh-turned earth betrayed the scavenging pick. Beyond the tree-trunks, day glimmered. Above, black branches trellised gray sky. A ditch full of water led through this place of death. Ahead of them, something whistled into the undergrowth. They dropped into the ditch; waded along, single file, calf-deep in liquid mud; ducked under a fallen log; waded on again. Another shell whistled into the undergrowth above them. “Whizz-bang,” said Peter laconically. Now, they were under open sky; making their way along a battered trench towards the support-lines. In front of them and behind them, hidden by humped earth from the enemy, toiled little parties of infantry: bomb-carriers, water-carriers, men with loaded rifles and men with empty stretchers. The liquid mud deepened to quagmire.