But he got no further. There came a roar and a shock that shook the ground. Five hundred yards ahead of us the brown face of Primrose Hill broke into a spouting row of earth-fountains, intermingled with the smoke of shrapnel and whizz-bangs. The evening’s barrage had begun. The line of men behind us recoiled for a moment, then pressed stolidly forward. "We have got to get through that," I announced—a little superfluously. Roy replied—somewhat unexpectedly—right in my left ear, at the top of his voice: "Uncle Alan, I want to tell you that I am married!" "So I have been given to understand!" I bellowed. The din was growing louder. "Who told you? Old Eskerley?" I nodded; halted; and sniffed the air, "I thought so," I said. "Gas-masks, Roy—quick!" Roy turned and waved an order to his company. In a few seconds we were advancing again: each man had transformed God’s image into a goggled deformity, and was breathing God’s air from a box of chemicals through a jointed tube. Roy and I adjusted our masks last. "Come along," I said, with a glance ahead of us: "the longer we look at it the less we shall like it!" I tried to fit my mask to my face, but found that Roy was shouting into my ear again. "Uncle Alan—" I inclined my head towards him. "Well?" "_I am a father!_" I nodded my hideous head, and smiled congratulations as well as I could. "I only got word this morning," I heard him bawl as his face disappeared into his mask. "BOY!" And with that he led his company into the barrage. I felt convinced if we got through it Roy would tell the first German he met about the baby. *CHAPTER XX* *FOUNTAIN KEEP* Of the next half-hour my recollection is mercifully blurred. All that I know is that most of us got through the barrage and foregathered at the back of Fountain Keep, which proved to be a circular _point d’appui_ intersected and honeycombed with trenches, saps and tunnels. "Carry right on with the company," I said to Roy. "I think you will find some hand-to-hand work going on just over the ridge; so your men will be welcome. I will try to find the Headquarters of the Royal Loyals. Take care of yourself, laddie!" Our gas-masks were off again by this time, so we could smile at one another as we parted. Ultimately Herriott and I discovered the Headquarters of the Fifth Royal Loyals—a dug-out at the back of the Keep, occupied by a slightly hysterical second lieutenant (apparently the adjutant) and a telephone orderly vainly trying to make connection with a Brigade Headquarters which we learned afterwards had been shelled out of existence twenty minutes before.