It swept over the two men's heads with a vicious swish and dived into the opposite wall of the shell-hole. Bowdy went red in the face, Bubb's jaw dropped, his eyes protruded as if they were going to spring out of his head. The shock paralysed the two boys for a second; they were so unnerved that the feeling of fear was momentarily denied them. They stared blankly at the shell which had only entered about a foot into the ground. The base of the projectile was showing, it might explode at any moment. They were in a position similar to that of a patient to whose body a local anæsthetic is applied and who sees the surgeon at work but does not feel the knife. Bowdy was the first to recover his composure. "Clear out of it, Spudhole!" he yelled, and both clambered across the rim of the crater into the open. They lay out there for a few minutes and as the shell did not go off they went back again. Outside the machine-gun bullets were ripping up the ground. The two men lay down quietly without speaking a word. Bubb put the stump of his cigarette back in his mouth and relit it. "There! See the aeroplanes?" said Bowdy. "They're flying damned low over the enemy trench. Hear their horns going? Signalling to the artillery, I suppose." "S'pose so," said Bubb, flattening out in the bottom of the shell-crater and drawing his cigarette from behind his ear. He put it in his mouth and lit it. "I knew it would be wanted," he said. Ten minutes passed. The tanks were still stuck and showed no sign of movement. The English artillery opened on the High Wood again. All guns within range had apparently chosen it for their objective now. The oft-lacerated tree-stumps were broken like glass, they were dragged out by the roots and hurled broadcast; the wood was disgorging its entrails. The unfortunate wretches who held it were in a ghastly situation. To remain in their dug-outs was death. Their manner of dying was left to their choice. They could come out into the hurricane and be blown to bits, they could stay in their lairs and be buried alive. They were confronted by two evils, one as bad as the other. The machine-guns were silent now; probably they were all out of action. Bowdy put up his head and looked across towards the German lines. "God, they're getting it!" he said. "And the tanks are still stuck.... There! There're hundreds of the Germans coming across with their hands up.... One batch is unlucky; a shell has dropped in the middle of them." "Far as I can see, we'll 'ave nuffink to do when this strafin' is over, bar go over an' take the trenches," said Bubb, who was looking at the nerve-shaken Germans as they came rushing towards the craters. "I 'ope we get relieved to-night after we've finished." "'Course we'll get relieved," said Bowdy. "We've been in four days now.... Here, what the devil's wrong with you?"