A General Action

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"It's not him ye'll be getting round," said McRory, "for it's the Little Lad himself that's in it. But sure the Little Lad will be that glad to see me offer to take a pick in my hand that I believe he'd be willing to let me dig up his own grandfather's grave."

"We'll find some way when the time comes, never fear," said Sergeant Clancy, and the men willingly agreed to leave the matter in his capable hands.

Immediately after dark, the Little Lad, otherwise Lieutenant Riley, led his party at a careful crawl and in wide-spaced single file out to the listening-post, while Brock and the Captain crawled out with a couple of men, a white tape, and a handful of pegs apiece to mark out the line of the new trenches converging from the outside ends of the curved main trench to the listening-post.

When they returned and reported their job complete, the working parties crawled cautiously out. There were plenty of flares being thrown up from the German lines and a more or less erratic rifle fire was crackling up and down the trenches on both sides, the Tearaways taking care to keep their bullets clear of the working party, to fire no more than enough to allay any German suspicions of a job being in hand, and not to provoke any extra hostility.

The working party crept out one by one, carrying their rifles and their trenching tools, dropping flat and still in the long grass every time a light flared, rising and crawling rapidly forward in the intervals of darkness. When at last they were strung out at distances of less than a man's length, they stealthily commenced operations. A line of filled sandbags was handed out from the main trench and passed along the chain of men until each had been provided with one.

Making the sand-bag a foundation for head cover, the men began cautiously to cut and scoop the soft ground and pile it up in front of them. The grass was long and rank, and in the shifting light the work went on unobserved for over an hour. The men, cramped and uncomfortable, with every muscle aching from head to foot, worked doggedly, knowing each five minutes' work, each handful of earth scooped out and thrown up, meant an extra point off the odds on a bullet reaching them when the Germans discovered their operations and opened fire on the working party.

They still worked only in the dark intervals between the flares, and, of course, in as deep a silence as they possibly could. Brock and the Captain crawled at intervals up and down the line with a word of praise or a reproach dropped here and there as it was needed. At the end of one trip, Brock crept into the listening-post and conversed in whispers with Riley, his fellow-conspirator.

"They're working like beavers," he said, "and, if the Boche doesn't twig the game for another half-hour, we'll have enough cover scooped out to go on without losing too many men from their fire."