The day passed quietly. Soon after sunset Mr. Scammell sent two of his scouts out to watch the gap in the German wire that he had blown with his explosive tube. They returned at ten o'clock and reported that the enemy had made no attempt to mend the gap. The night was misty and the enemy's illumination a little above normal. At eleven o'clock Lieut. Scammell went out himself, accompanied by Lieut. Harvey and nine men. They reached the gap in the enemy wire without being discovered, and there they separated. Mr. Harvey and two others moved along the front of the wire to the left, and a sergeant and one man went to the right. Mr. Scammell and his five men passed through the wire and extended a few yards to the left, close under the hostile parapet. The officer stood up, close against the wet sandbags. Dave Hammer, Dick, Peter, Hiram Sill and Sacobie followed his example. Then, all together, they tossed six bombs into the trench. The shattering bangs of six more blended with the bangs of the first volley. From right and left along the trench sounded other explosions. Obeying their officer's instructions, Scammell's men made the return journey through the wire and struck out for home at top speed, trusting to the mist to hide their movements from the foe. Scammell rid himself of three more bombs and then followed his party. The white mist swallowed them. The bombers ran, stumbled and ran again, eager to reach the shelter of their own parapet before the shaken enemy should recover and begin sweeping the ground with his machine guns. Sacobie and Dick were the first to get into the trench. Then came Sergt. Hammer and Lieut. Scammell, followed close by Lieut. Harvey and his party. By that time the German machine guns were going full blast. "Are Sergt. Starkley and Private Sill here?" "Don't see either of 'em, sir," Sergt. Hammer said in reply to Mr. Scammell's question. "Perhaps they got here before any of us and beat it for their dugout," said Mr. Scammell. "Dick, you go along the trench and have a look for them. If they aren't in, come back and report to me. Wait right here for me, mind you--on _this_ side of the parapet. Get that?" Then the officer spoke a few hurried words to Sergt. Hammer, a few to the sentry, and went over the sandbags like a snake. Hammer went out of the trench at the same moment; and Frank Sacobie took one glance at the sentry and followed Hammer like a shadow. The mist lay close and cold and almost as wet as rain over that puddled waste. Mr. Scammell found Peter and Hiram about ten yards in front of the gap in our wire; the private was unhurt and the sergeant unconscious. Sill had his tall friend on his back and was crawling laboriously homeward. "Whiz-bang," he informed Mr. Scammell. "It got Pete bad, in the leg. I heard him grunt and soon found him."