With Haig on the Somme

Private Harry Hawke, of the 2/12th Battalion Royal Reedshire Regiment (T.F.), sat on the step of the fire trench, his back against the parapet, busy with the bolt of his rifle.

He stood quite still for fully five minutes to make sure that they had really gone, and then he stole with catlike tread over the noiseless carpet, and, opening the door, listen...

"Sir!" And the marksman of A Company jumped across the floor of the trench to the door of the dug-out with surprising alacrity, as the merry laughing face of Dennis Dashwood sho...

"Stand clear, sir!" he shouted, but the German's hands went up above his head, and in a quavering voice he cried, "Kamerad! Mercy, officer! I am married with two little ones, an...

The staff cap, with its scarlet band and gold-edged peak, spun round in the air and dropped half a dozen yards away, as its late wearer sprang on to the parapet and vanished out...

The Divisional Headquarters had been fixed at a spot where several roads branched off like the sticks of a fan, and the one Dennis followed was a typical French chaussee, paved...

Dennis Dashwood laughed aloud, but though there was genuine amusement in his voice at the beginning, it quickly tailed off into a broken quiver, for the lad was still suffering...

By great good fortune, when they reached the crumpled ruins of the cottage, they found two stretcher-bearers kneeling among the nettles, on the look-out for casualties. They had...

The atmosphere of the vault--for it was nothing less--was close and stuffy, and there was a greasy smell in the still air, emanating from some lubricant used to protect the stoc...

"Never mind about that," laughed his brother. "And it's no use looking about for your duds; we've moved into new quarters over yonder, and all our clobber's gone across, but I'v...

"My observer is in there," said the French _pilote aviateur_, pointing to an isolated cottage as they passed it. "It would be cruel to tell him that I have already found a fresh...

Already a faint grey veil was creeping over the darkness, and at the end of several minutes they found themselves approaching a beech wood which clothed the base of a high hill,...

When Dennis Dashwood saw that terrible tableau through the window of Von Rudolfstein's hunting-lodge, his first thought was that he had arrived too late to save his friend; and,...

Three surgeons, hastily summoned to the spot, knelt with their instruments beside Claude Laval, not twenty yards from the bodies of the two German airmen whom he had brought dow...

"If you mean the singing bloke, sir--last I seed of 'im he was doin' a bunk for his own battalion," replied the Cockney private. And Dennis Dashwood's teeth closed with a snap,...

The German guns were flinging a terrific barrage fire behind us in a vain attempt to prevent our reserves coming up, and Dennis found that the spot at which they had emerged was...

"Tomkins!" cried the Captain, "bunk back to the C.O. if you can find him, and tell him there's a strong counter-attack on. Say it's a matter of minutes if we're going to hold th...

In the old Elizabethan days, before scene-painting was invented, they used to hang a placard on a black cloth behind the actors with such inscriptions as "This is the seashore,"...

The shock of the discovery was so great that Dennis lay paralysed, and everything seemed very black indeed, until a low murmur in English brought him to his senses at his elbow.

For a couple of strides he advanced towards them, deceived for an instant by the jacket of the dead German which Dennis was wearing. Then he sprang back with a startled cry, his...

"Don't play the giddy ox, Hawke. Where are your eyes?" he shouted, as the point of the bayonet grazed his brown gaiter; and then, in spite of the terrible danger overhanging the...

"Stand down, Reedshires! File off by your right!" And the shattered remnant of that fine battalion groped its way along a broken communication trench to the rear, as a fresh bat...

The hubbub in the restaurant was tremendous. Well-dressed people can jostle and clamour and crush just as selfishly as anybody else, and those of the lunchers who were not near...

The wake of the battalion was marked at every stride by enemy dead and wounded, and when Wetherby overtook them he found them bayoneting and bombing their way along a zigzag tre...

The two occupants clung to the side of the padded basket, from which it was a marvel they had not been flung by the sudden upward rush of the huge sausage-shaped envelope above...

Dennis picked himself up with a sob of bitter disappointment, as he realised that the dead mare, which had carried him for a brief moment among his own people, had now landed hi...

It was growing dark now, and the rolling country through which they passed became rapidly blurred. The white excavations that here and there marked the presence of a trench were...

The strain of lying there hour after hour had become unbearable. The idea had also struck him that now was his opportunity to glean some information, if possible, about the lie...

The terrified German herd sprang aside as the two figures hurtled down through the middle of them. Arms were raised sky-high, and quavering voices clamoured "Mercy, Kamerad--we...

With the coming of dusk came Dennis Dashwood back to the old battalion, just at roll-call. The last quarter of a mile he performed at the double, and burst into the fire-trench...

Like magic the whole line of sandbags became alive with other white figures pouring in one crashing volley at point-blank range, and with a full-throated British cheer the Reeds...

Von Dussel's head must have been as hard as his black heart, for he had recovered his senses at the moment Wetherby died, and a mighty gust of passion swept over Dennis Dashwood...