If ever man in a tight corner drew comfort from good work done in the past, it was Weasel Stark as he stood alone that night, and watched this entity of his creating file past him in the darkness.

Very quietly they came, team after toiling team, gun after creaking gun, subaltern after subaltern leading his section to their marked position—O’Grady, Archdale, Pettigrew, Straker, Conway, Merrilees, Hall and Hutchinson. One by one the teams were unhooked, led away; one by one the guns swung round, muzzles across the gaping trench. And about each gun, as it dropped into position, men laboured, men very weary of labour, with pick and shovel and sand-bag, making what cover they might against the dawn.

And till dawn began, up and down among the labouring men,—the orders he had anticipated received at last—strode the Weasel, rasping across the darkness: “Dig! you blight-hawks. For the Lord’s sake, dig!”