B00D2VJZ4G EBOK by Jon E. Lewis

many duties together after that and we grew in each other’s regard. Of course we never voiced it – at twenty years of age one does not, nor, I suppose, at sixty. I don’t know! But how else can I explain why he cursed me more abusively than my fellows? Or that my references to his mode of travel along the trenches as being due to chronic ‘wind-up’ caused him to smile and make dumb signs with his fingers, yet when others said so he would rise in a flash to silence them with his clenched fists.
    One night when Kendall and I, together with two others, were over the parados busily digging, the enemy’s machine guns traversed in our direction. It was soon after nine o’clock when ‘Jerry’ started to strafe us pretty generally along the line with ‘minnies,’ ‘coal-boxes,’ ‘flying pigs,’ ‘toffee apples, ‘aerial torpedoes; ‘flying fishes,’ ‘pip-squeaks,’ – a very mixed assortment from his stock, to be recognized by whichever of their names you knew them.
    Soon we heard the cry ‘Stretcher bearers!’ Again and again it was repeated as we crouched lower in our now deepening pit.
    ‘Down Sap 26 – shouldn’t wonder,’ Kendall said, rising and plying his spade once more. ‘’D’ Company’s getting it good and heavy. Damned if I don’t think we’re better off out here over the – ’ A ‘pip-squeak’ exploded near by and the sprayed earth tinkled on our steel helmets. The next minute our captain dropped into the pit. We stopped working and wondered what he wanted. He spoke to me:
    ‘A ‘minnie’ has dropped plump into the middle of the support bay of Sap 26 and wiped all four of them out, poor chaps, and the two men at the sap-head have been sent down with shell-shock. I want you and someone else to man the sap-head and hang out as long as you possibly can, because the company is short of men and I can’t spare any to remain in support. If you get into trouble you must send up a couple of Verey lights and make your way back to the front line. Now, who’ll you take with you?’
    ‘Me, sir!’ Kendall answered quickly.
    ‘Right! You others must come to the front line. This job must wait.’
    We gathered our tools together and prepared to make our way back to the front line.
    ‘Sergeant Popple and I will come with you as far as the support bay. Wait for us at the entrance to the sap.’
    Arrived at the entrance, we waited for the captain and Sergeant Popple. They soon came up, bringing the Verey light pistol with them.
    ‘All O.K.?’ the captain asked.
    We nodded.
    ‘Then lead the way – you’ll find it’s knee deep in mud. Halt at the support bay, or where the bay was before the ‘minnie’ dropped. We’re sure to straggle outgoing through the mud.’
    For the first few yards of the sap – a roughly hewn trench leading forwards from our front line – the going was good and the desultory shelling ceased. Then the mud became thicker, almost knee high, and footholds none too easy. And the squelching as each foot was lifted out of the mud seemed deafening in contrast with the piercing quiet that had descended on our sector.
    I floundered into a hole, loin high in the mud.
    ‘‘Ware hole,’ I whispered over my shoulder to Kendall and heard him pass the warning on to the captain, who in turn passed it on to Sergeant Popple. And in a few moments more I heard the captain’s muffled curses as he floundered as I had done.
    At last we arrived at the ‘minnie’ hole, where the support bay had been.
    ‘Jerry could hear us a mile off,’ Kendall whispered.
    How much farther to the sap-head? ‘the captain asked.
    ‘Another 60 feet or so,’ I replied.
    ‘All right. We’ll give you ten minutes by my watch, and unless you signal us before that we’ll return to the front line. I’ll have you relieved as soon as I can, but it won’t be before morning. Don’t make yourselves objectionable, because I can’t spare any men to support you. Good luck!’
    The mud was not so deep