With difficulty Ralph and the ex-actor extricated themselves. Ginger was in a worse predicament, for until his comrades gripped his arm and dragged him out by main force he was unable to disengage himself from the clammy embrace of the tenacious clay. "I came out 'ere for sojering," remarked the aggrieved man. "Not to go in for mudlarkin'. I could get plenty of that at Gravesend." "Phit! phit!" Something, buzzing like an angry bee, slapped viciously into the mud wall a few inches above Setley's head. Then another, glancing off the steel helmet of the still grumbling Anderson, sent the man staggering into Ralph's arms. "Keep down as you pass this place," shouted a hoarse voice through the darkness. "The parapet's blown in." A gap nearly twenty yards in length confirmed the speaker's words. Through this exposed section rifle bullets were whizzing. Apparently the Huns had marked the spot during the hours of daylight and had lashed some rifles to posts, so trained that at fifteen hundred yards they could command this part of the communication trench by night. The platoon obeyed smartly, yet resentfully. It was bad enough to have to walk through mud. To crawl on one's hands and knees was about the limit. "Way for the wounded!" The men, most of them still in a prone position, hugged the slippery side of the trench, peering through the darkness at the as yet strange sight. "Good luck, you blighters!" exclaimed the first of the wounded Tommies, a tall cadaverous man, with his head roughly bandaged and his arm in a sling. "You're going to a hot shop, s'welp me. Fifteen of our chaps copped it in ten minutes. Never mind; it's for Blighty I am." The next casualty--a man with his left hand blown off at the wrist--was groaning and cursing as he passed, staggering like a drunken man and paying scant heed to the warning to keep well down. Then two more, borne on stretchers. The knuckles of the bearers rasped the equipment of the Wheatshires, so narrow was the space in which to pass, while in order to cross the "unhealthy" section of the trench the men had to deposit the stretchers on the duck-boards and drag them sleigh fashion. Three men, hobbling, using their rifles as crutches, completed the pageant of pain. "Copped it proper," explained one of the wounded. "Never 'ad as much as a blinkin' chance to fire my blessed rifle." "Wouldn't 'ave been much use if you did, Tommy," rejoined his comrade with a laugh. "You knowed as 'ow you're the rottenest shot in the battalion." "No need to rub that in afore a lot of strangers," retorted the other. "'Op it; I'll race you to the dressing-station. No more dashed first line trenches for us for a bit, thank 'eaven. Foot it, you blighter, afore your leg gets stiff." The twain vanished into the darkness, leaving the dank, reeking odours of dirt and sweat in the muggy air. Another hundred yards and a voice rang out: "Is that the ration party?" "No," replied the sergeant. "Reliefs for the Wheatshires."