"We answered them hot and heavy. We didn't leave room for a worm to crawl up to him, much less a man. Then, when night came, some of our fellows drove a sap to where he lay and hooked down the body." "And the map?" "Scrawled on his bare chest, the way he said it would be," the veteran answered, "and underneath was written in the same smeared violet marks the word: "'Victory!'" "You can't beat France when it comes to heroism!" declared Horace. "The English are just as nervy," answered the veteran. "Even in the trenches, though, they fight differently. They make far fewer night attacks than we do, and far more mines. There's few nights that the British haven't got a listening patrol out somewhere on the line." "I hear every one talking of a 'listening patrol,'" put in the lad; "tell me, Sergeant, just what a listening patrol is for." "To listen," answered the veteran laconically. "Of course, but for what?" The answer came, sinister, "Mines!" "Ah!" Horace had seen the effects of those most terrible of all weapons of trench warfare. [Illustration: _Courtesy of "Illustrated London News."_ LISTENING PATROL TRAPPED BY A STAR-SHELL.] [Illustration: _Courtesy of "Illustrated London News."_ LOCATING ENEMY SAPPERS ON A LISTENING PATROL.] "You see," the veteran explained, "when trenches are well and solidly dug, especially the way the Germans build them; when solid machine-gun emplacements are made and properly manned with plenty of ammunition; when there is a concentration of artillery to support the trenches on both sides, nobody can do much. Of course, they shell us all the time, and we shell them. They send over rifle-bombs and we shoot ammonal and vitriol grenades. Once in a while, if they're lucky, they'll land a 'Minnenwerfer' in one of our trenches and then there's a little work for the doctor and a lot for the grave-digger." "What's a 'Minnenwerfer'?" "A pleasant little toy the Germans have invented, which looks like a rubber ball at the end of a stick. Its right name is the 'Krupp trench howitzer.' It weighs only 120 pounds--at least one of them that we captured, weighed that--and can be handled by a couple of men. Although it has a caliber of only 2.1-inch it throws a shell of 16-inch diameter." "How on earth can it do that?" asked the boy. "You can't squeeze a 16-inch shell down a 2.1-inch muzzle!" "That's what the stick is for," came the reply. "The shell is round, like one of the old-fashioned cannon-balls you see piled up in village squares beside antiquated cannon. It weighs 200 pounds and has a bursting charge of 86 pounds of tri-nitro-toluol. The shell is bored to the center. You shove one end of the iron rod into the gun so that it sticks out about eight inches beyond the muzzle. Then you put the shell on the rod by the hole bored to the center. It looks like a toy balloon at the end of a child's toy cannon. Then you fire it, the iron rod is shot out, driving the bomb ahead of it and off she goes."