“Four o’clock, sir. Time to get up.” Peter awoke from undisturbed slumbers; saw Driver Garton standing, candle in one hand, steaming mug in the other, by his bedside. He pulled himself up from his valise; drank tea gratefully. In the opposite corner of the room, tossing uneasily in his sleep, lay Purves. Outside, all was still—not a gun firing. Peter dressed quickly, slipped sling of gas-helmet over his head; went downstairs.

The Mess-room, still shuttered, smelt dankly of stale smoke and human sleep. In one corner, telephone-receiver strapped round his ears, lay Driver Nicholson. “Don’t wake him,” whispered Peter, as his servant deposited breakfast on the table. “Go round to the dug-out, and tell them that Seabright’s to be ready in ten minutes. I shall want my field-glasses, my map-case, my compass, and a message-book.”

“And your cigar-case, sir?” smiled the young Yorkshireman. For answer, Peter tapped on his tunic-pocket; smiled back. Master and man knew each other fairly well.

The Adjutant disposed of two poached eggs, some greasy bacon, three slices of buttered toast and a large mug of black tea; lit a cigar; sauntered out of the house. A light appeared at one of the upper windows; some one called out: “That you, Jameson?”

“Yes, sir. I tried not to wake you.”

“You don’t catch weasels asleep. Mind you let me have plenty of information. And watch the signal station at G nine ack two seven—on the embankment.”

“I’ve got a note of that, sir.”

“Right. I’m going back to bed for an hour.”

Appeared from the shadows, Gunner Seabright (“Poluski number one”), a fat-faced little man, clean-shaven, perpetually at grin. He carried a telephone case in his hand, another over his shoulder, a coil of wire.

“Got any earth-pins?” asked Peter.

“Aye, aye, sir.” Seabright had at one time in his chequered career been in the Navy. “Two of them.”

“Come on then.”

They climbed the fence at the back of the garden; stumbled across the colliery tram-lines; followed a red wire up the gritty front of the huge slag-cone. Light was just breaking, a glimmer of dawn over cloudy skies. Not a breath of wind stirred anywhere. “Hot work, sir,” commented the telephonist.

“Damned hot,” said Peter.

They made a flat platform of slag running round the peak of the cone; followed it half way round. “Going to observe from outside, sir?” “Yes. This’ll do. Connect up, will you?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Seabright opened his telephone case; drove the earth pin into the slag; connected it to his instrument; scraped the insulation from the red wire they had been following; screwed it home; began to buzz.

“··-· -··- -·· (F. X. D.)” buzzed Gunner Seabright “··-· -··- -·· (F. X. D.) Hallo there? Dugout? Is that you Pirbright? Then why the yell don’t you answer quicker?” As he had only called twice, the question was pure swank. Peter tested the line; wandered off round the Fosse.

Already it was alive. Officers everywhere, some ensconced at the end of deep burrows, peering out over the plain; some clambering up the pathways at the back; some standing about at the mouths of their caves; and at the very top, thirty feet above Peter’s head, among a perfect jumble of wires, two Frenchmen—operators for the heavy battery just visible on the plain below, gesticulating and shouting at their strange-looking telephone.

“Mais non,” Peter heard, “mais non. On ne voit rien. Rien je vous dis.... Alors dans une demi-heure, mon Commandant.”

“Their Major’s evidently not in a hurry,” thought Peter.

He was accosted by a serious-eyed Captain of Sappers. “Who are you observing for?”

“First Corps.”

“Well, you can’t get inside. It’s full.”

“I know. My telephonist is just round the corner.”

“Good. We shan’t see much from here.”

“No.” Peter went back to his telephonist.

Now, the glimmer of dawn turned to a faint dark blue radiance. Nothing stirred on the plain below. Light grew; revealing the silent village street, the churchyard, the ruined chapel of “Our Lady of Consolation” battered among her poplars, the long tree-girt stretch of the Hulluch Road. Beyond, like a dun still sea streaked with unmoving foam, lay the trenches. Beyond them, mist.

Peter drew out his map; unslung his glasses; threw away the stump of his cigar.

The mist cleared, revealing the dark pylons of Loos, twin spidery towers, black against the gray, a tiny blurr of high houses that was City Saint Élie, the great wheeled pit-head of Fosse Eight. It still lacked half-an-hour to “zero”; Peter wandered round to the back of the Fosse. Men were stirring round the gun-pits below. A motor skirled the dust on the road where Beuvry towers stood out from the plain....

“Colonel to speak to you, sir,” announced Seabright, appearing suddenly at his elbow. Peter ran back to the telephone.

“How’s the light?”

“Middling, sir. And no wind yet.”

Peter lit another cigar; looked at his watch. A quarter of an hour yet. He was not in the least excited. It all seemed dull—dull beyond belief.... Ten minutes.... Still, it would be a show worth watching.... Seven.... What was the colour of Seventh’s Division’s flag—red and blue—diagonal. ... Five minutes more.... His pulse quickened a beat.... Two minutes.... Decidedly, a show not to miss.... One minute.... He knelt down to be near the telephone....

Cr-rack! Looking down, Peter saw a blue flash, a smoke puff among the trees round “Our Lady of Consolation.” Simultaneously the whole plain erupted. Here, there, everywhere, yellow and blue, the hidden pits flamed and screamed. Thin smoke rose from them; drifted back in a faint breeze. (“Hope to God, we’re not going to use our gas,” thought Peter.) Behind him, he heard the sharp clang of French heavies; the deep note of Granny, the huge howitzer in Sailly La Bourse.

He looked towards the trenches; saw single shrapnel bursting orange to fleecy puffs. The puffs blended to a sea of white, flooding out the trenches. It was as though some invisible hand had poured an enormous wave of milk across the near horizon. And out of the wave spouted great heaving whorls of rusty smoke; staining it. And beyond, he could see huge shells striking at the foot of the spidery towers; at the reeling pit-head; at the high houses of City Saint Élie. Smoke pillars lifted to the sky, quartering the landscape....

And always the voice of the guns grew hoarser in the plain below; always the scream of their flighting shells wailed across the sky....

“Colonel to speak to you, sir.”

Eyes on the plain, Peter took the receiver.

“Are the Boche replying?”

“No, sir. Unless they’re shelling our front line. I can’t see much except smoke.”

“Naturally. They lift in ten minutes.”

Still it went on below. Bark of eighteen pounder. Sharp double crack of four-point-seven. Screech and clang of French heavies. Deep boom of Granny far away in rear. Peter swept the sky with his glasses; saw the pit-head tottering above the smoke. Why didn’t they knock it out? Short! Short again! ... He looked down towards the trenches. The white wave had turned gray....

Sombrely the dawn increased. In another minute, the infantry would go over.

He fixed his glasses on the gray wave; saw it recede; saw line after line of tiny black figures, ant-like, swarm out of the ground; vanish into the grayness.

“Tell the Colonel. Infantry gone over.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Below, noise lessened. He peered into the smoke-pall. Further it rolled; and further. In it, nothing moved. Out of it, emerged house-tops. And suddenly he saw the black specks again, little bunches of them. Peter studied his map; took out his protractor.

“Call up the Colonel. Is that you, sir? Infantry retiring from the direction of City Saint Élie.”

“Are you quite certain? We’ve had a rumour that City Saint Élie’s fallen.”

“Quite certain, sir. True bearing from here is 100 degrees.”

“Thanks. I’ll report to Division.”

And that was all our Mr. Jameson saw of the fifty thousand very gallant gentlemen who stormed forward through our own gas, dribbling foot-balls, tooting hunting-horns, skirling bag-pipes and blowing mouth-organs—on the morning of September the 25th, nineteen-hundred and fifteen!

Gradually, the gun-fire died away; smoke cleared from the plain. Bare and silent, the dun sea stretched to the sky-line. From very far away, came a faint chattering of machine guns. A German balloon rose up; peered at things; went down again. Down the Hulluch road, a toy battery trotted noiselessly. Only the French “heavies” behind the Fosse, still clanged unceasing.

But the great slag-cone itself seethed with excited men.

Out from their burrows they came; down from their eyries; maps in their hands, telescopes under arm, binoculars dangling from their shoulders. Rumour hundred-wired, ran among them. Loos had fallen,—said rumour—Hulluch was ours, City Saint Élie, Haisnes, Douvrin!

“By God, we’ve broken them,” roared a fierce little Major of Garrison Artillery, “by God, we’ve broken them at last!” And he danced up there, on the gritty slag, none heeding.

“Look,” shouted the Captain of Sappers, “look! The Cavalry!” And moisture brimmed into his eyes, watching the squadrons wheeling into line on the grass-fields just below.

And always, high up, like monkeys among the telephone-posts, the three Frenchmen jabbered to their clanging guns—“Bon. Bon. Bien tirÉ. Magnifique. On les a, je vous dis. Oui. Oui. Oui. On les a!”

But Chips Bradley’s grandson, peering out over the empty plain, peering back towards BÉthune—waiting, waiting, waiting, for the dust cloud on the road, the dust cloud that never came—thought of the words his Colonel had spoken the night before. And the heart in him was heavy, even in those early hours, with forebodings of disaster!