And as they marched back down the road they had come they met some of their stragglers hobbling painfully on bandaged feet, or picked them up from where they still lay in a stupor of sleep on the roadside. And to all of them the one word ‘advance’ was enough. ‘We’re going back ... it’s an advance,’ turned them staggering round to limp back in the tail of the battalion, or lifted them to their feet to follow on as best they might. They picked up more than their own men, too, men of other regiments who had straggled and fallen out, but now drew fresh store of strength from the cheerful word ‘advance,’ and would not be denied their chance to be in the van of it, but tailed on in rear of the battalion and struggled to keep up with them. ‘We’re all right, sir,’ said one when an officer would have turned him and sent him back to find his own battalion. ‘We’re pretty near done in on marching; but there’s a plenty fight left in us--specially when it’s an advance.’ ‘Jacko,’ said Peter, ‘I’m damn near dead; but thank the Lord I won’t ’ave to die runnin’ away.’ ‘All I asks,’ said Jacko, ‘is as fair a target on ’em as we’ve ’ad before, an’ a chance to put a ’ole in the back o’ some o’ _their_ ’eads.’ ‘Ah!’ said Peter. ‘Pore little Blinker. They’ve got to pay for ’im an’ a few more like ’im.’ ‘They ’ave, blarst them,’ said Jacko savagely, and dropped his hand to his bayonet haft, slid the steel half out and home again. ‘Don’t fret, chum, they’ll pay--soon or late, this time or nex’, one day or another--they’ll pay.’ _THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS._ BY BENNET COPPLESTONE. I. BAITING THE TRAP.