“I see,” said Ayling, surveying the position with real interest.  He was beginning to enjoy selecting gun-emplacements which really mattered.  It was a change from nine months of “eye-wash.”

When the German star-shell had spent itself they crossed the road, to the rear of the redoubt, and marked the other two emplacements—­in comparative safety now.

“The only trouble about this place,” said Ayling, as he surveyed the last position, “is that my fire will be masked by that house with the clump of trees beside it.”

The Engineer produced a small note-book, and wrote in it by the light of a convenient star-shell.

“Right-o!” he said.  “I’ll have the whole caboodle pushed over for you by to-morrow night.  Anything else?”

Ayling began to enjoy himself.  After you have spent nine months in an unprofitable attempt to combine practical machine-gun tactics with a scrupulous respect for private property, the realisation that you may now gratify your destructive instincts to the full comes as a welcome and luxurious shock.

“Thanks,” he said.  “You might flatten out that haystack, too.”

* * * * *

They found the others hard at work when they returned.  Captain Blaikie was directing operations from the centre of the redoubt.

“I say,” he said, as the Engineer sat down beside him, “I’m afraid we’re doing a good deal of body-snatching.  This place is absolutely full of little wooden crosses.”

“Germans,” replied the Engineer laconically.

“How long have they been—­here?”

“Since October.”

“So I should imagine,” said Blaikie, with feeling.

“The crosses aren’t much guide, either,” continued the Engineer.  “The deceased are simply all over the place.  The best plan is to dig until you come to a blanket. (There are usually two or three to a blanket.) Then tell off a man to flatten down clay over the place at once, and try somewhere else.  It is a rotten job, though, however you look at it.”

“Have you been here long?” inquired Bobby Little, who had come across the road for a change of air.

“Long enough!  But I’m not on duty continuously.  I am Box.  Cox takes over to-morrow.”  He rose to his feet and looked at his watch.

“You ought to move off by half-past one, sir,” he said to Blaikie.  “It begins to get light after that, and the Bosches have three shells for that cross-road over there down in their time-table at two-fifteen.  They’re a hide-bound lot, but punctual!”

“Thanks,” said Blaikie.  “I shall not neglect your advice.  It is half-past eleven now.  Come along, Bobby, and we’ll see how old Ayling is getting on.”

* * * * *