till arter dark, an' we'll come along over the top and 'ave yer out with a rope. So long." The unfeeling Bill kissed his not over-clean hand and disappeared round the corner. Silence—broken occasionally by the sharp crack of a rifle bullet or the explosion of a casual shell—settled down once more. Higgins sank into a kind of stupor.... * * * * * * * "Hist!" said a slightly dramatic voice above him, and he woke to a consciousness that darkness had fallen, and that the rescue party was at hand. "That you, sergeant?" he asked joyfully. "Not so loud, you blinkin' fool!" whispered Sergeant Lees fervently. "It ain't daylight now. The Boche 'as the wind up proper, an' if 'e 'ears you there'll be 'ell on. Catch 'old o' this rope. Now then, lads, ready? 'Eave!" Higgins felt the rope tighten. Then came an [Pg 12]almost intolerable strain on his body as the six panting figures up above opposed their joint strength to the passive resistance of his firmly-embedded gum-boots. Something had to give somewhere. That something turned out to be Higgins' old pair of braces, which had been forced to undertake the support of the said boots in addition to their usual responsibility. They snapped suddenly. The tug-of-war party collapsed in a heap, and Alf shot into the air like a cork from a champagne-bottle (leaving his trousers behind him) and fell again into the trench beside his tenantless and immovable boots. [Pg 12] He owed it to the quick wit of Sergeant Lees that he did not become bogged once more. His legs were already sinking in the ooze of the Glue-Pot when the sergeant leaned over, seized him by the coat collar and dragged him up by main force, just as his jacket split along its whole length with a rending sound. A Boche machine-gunner, much alarmed at the highly unusual sounds proceeding from the British lines, began to enquire into the matter. The shell-hole into which Alf rolled for safety happened to be full of filthy water, icy cold. [Pg 13] [Pg 13] CHAPTER II ALF CLEANS HIS BUTTONS CHAPTER II
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