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's soul.

"He can't be far off, and I'll find him if I die for it. Get you back to cover, Hawke."

"Is it likely?" cried his companion, giving vent to his overcharged feelings by a very ugly laugh, which changed into a howl of delight as a bullet grazed the tip of his ear. "There he is, sir, hiding in that there crater!—and he's some shot too—look out!"

Von Dussel, armed with a rifle—there were scores lying about littering the ground—lodged his second bullet in the leather case that held Dennis's field glasses, and, instantly dividing, the two ran a zigzag course towards the crater as they saw his head dodging down.

It was not twenty yards away, but as they reached it, one on either flank, they saw their prey scramble out of the opposite side and bolt like a hare across the open ground beyond.

There were two shell-holes in the distance, for one of which he was obviously making, but just as Hawke dropped to his knee and covered him with his rifle, the German searchlights went out, leaving everything pitch dark.

"That's done us, Hawke," cried Dennis bitterly, as the marksman of A Company fired a random shot.

"'Arf a mo, sir. If I didn't wing 'im, I'll bet I've 'eaded 'im orf to the right"; and he sent a brace of bullets pinging into the darkness.

"Lor lumme!" he chuckled the next moment, "there ain't no fool like an Allemong. What did he want to fire back for?" And he wiped a great gout of the chalky mud that had splashed up into his face as a Mauser bullet struck the ground between them. "'E's in that 'ole to the right—that's where we'll find 'im, sure as my name's 'Arry 'Awke. Come on, sir, don't make a sound!"

With the switching off of the searchlights the enemy barrage had ceased, and the deafening crash of the German shells was succeeded by a weird silence.

The distant boom of the British firing seemed very far off and almost insignificant in that sudden transition, and recharging his empty revolver as he went forward, Dennis wormed himself cautiously to the edge of the crump-hole, where he hoped to find his enemy.

It was still pouring in torrents as his chin came on a level with the ragged rim, but the fierce hope died out of his heart.

The shell-hole was an old one, the rain had filled it almost to the brim, and he ground his teeth, knowing that the spy had outwitted them after all. He knew now that, in spite of Hawke's shots, the villain with the charmed life must have chanced his arm and kept straight on between the two shell-holes, and would even then be nearing the German position, gloating over his success.

"I have missed the chance of my lifetime," he thought bitterly, when a star shell burst directly above him, lighting up the rain pool like a sheet of silver.

He had already picked himself up, and was clearing his throat to give his unseen companion a hail, when a warning whistle came from the opposite edge of the hole, and he saw Hawke's head and shoulders and a pointing arm.

Among the splashing raindrops in the centre of the pool a white face parted the water.

It was Von Dussel come up to breathe, and as the face sank out of sight again, Dennis dived in after it, regardless of all consequences.

Major Dashwood and the Brigadier, stumbling forward along the German communication, met three men carrying something between them, and the third man had the fingers of his left hand twined in a tight clutch on the collar of one of the bearers.

"What is all this, Dennis?" demanded the Brigadier, who had been an indignant witness of that strange chase, without in the least understanding what it meant.

"Little Wetherby dead, pater, and Von Dussel very much alive, and none the worse for a cold bath," came the answer; "the court martial that sits on his wife to-morrow will be able to kill two birds with one stone."

"My wife!" exclaimed the spy. "Ottilie in your hands!""Yes, you brute, we've bagged the pair of you," said Dennis, with a grim laugh; "it's been Von Dussel versus Dashwood for a long time, but the Dashwoods have 'won out' in the end."

"I do not understand," faltered Von Dussel in a choking voice, and then instantly recovering his true Prussian bluster: "I demand the right treatment accorded to every officer who has the misfortune to be taken prisoner. I have high connections in my country, and I am willing to give you my parole."

"Parole for a cowardly murderer!" interrupted Dennis hotly. "You are talking through the back of your neck, and you know it. Besides, apart from all that, there is only one end for spies."

Then all the bluster went out of the cur, and he shivered like a man with ague as they took him away under escort into a safe place.

In the rear of that formidable trench, which they had taken with such gallantry, the Reedshires buried their dead. There were not many of them, considering the fury of the fight, but the little row of white wood crosses told of good comrades gone for ever, and had a grim significance all its own.

Harry Hawke stood in the rain, leaning on his rifle before one of the crosses, reading the simple inscription which the armourer-sergeant had painted for him on the rough wood: "Jim Tiddler, 2/12th R.R.R., aged 21. He was a good pal."

"Yus, he was a good pal," muttered Hawke, "one of the best, and so was Mr. Wetherby. I'm glad old Tiddler's planted alongside 'im."His wicked little eye ranged away to another chalk mound which had no name upon it. It stood apart from the rest, and was close to that angle of the German salient where Dennis had crouched on the night that all the survivors would remember as long as they remembered anything. An ugly red smear on the sandbags at the head of the mound had not been washed away by the rain.

Two spies had been buried there, after a court martial held in a dug-out, and one of them had been a woman, who had tried to brazen it out in spite of the overwhelming evidence produced against them. Threats, tears, piteous appeals for mercy, Ottilie's big black eyes, all had proved in vain.

Then she had swallowed poison, but the tabloid she tried to pass to her husband was intercepted, and the volley of ball cartridge that dealt stern justice in the grey light of a wet afternoon had rid our lines of a deadly and insidious peril that had cost us many lives.

"Shooting was too good for 'im, the dirty dog," said Private Hawke, as he lit a woodbine and turned away.

And that was the requiem of the Von Dussels!

The weather brightened and the Great Push still rolled on. Day by day the shell dumps grew to incredible size, and the British guns never ceased their remorseless preparations. Names hitherto unknown to British readers became household words to those at home, who, reading between the lines, knew that at last our great and glorious armies were on the high road to victory.

It was not to be yet, but it was coming, slowly but surely, and Mrs. Dashwood, in the old home with the green lawn sloping to the water's edge, wished a thousand times that she had been born a man that she might have taken her share in the great achievement.

A month passed, and to the house in Regent's Park came a letter, written on a folding-table by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, and in the writer's ears as he scrawled the lines was the tramp of the relief filing past his dug-out door.

"Darling little Mater," wrote Dennis, "I'm going to give you a surprise, unless the Gazette's out already. You've heard me speak of Private Hawke of ours, the crack shot of my company, well, he and I have got three days' leave for a special reason. The King is going to present Hawke with the V.C., which he has deserved over and over again, at Buckingham Palace next Thursday. Incidentally I might mention that I am also to receive it on the same day. Also the Military Cross, likewise the D.S.O. It makes me positively blush as I sit here, and I really believe I'm the most fortunate beggar in the whole of our crush, if not in the Army.

"Don't make any mistake, dear, it has been sheer luck on my part. I've just happened to be there at the right moment. Some beggars who have done far more than I have have got nothing—but there it is.

"By the way, the French have been awfully decent to me. Somehow, Joffre got to know about a little scrap I had when the French attacked a German trench, and I helped to carry out the commandant, who was badly wounded. They have given me their Military Medal for that, and for inducing a German company to surrender I've got the Croix de Guerre, their newest decoration, you know; and I'll be hanged, but on top of it all the Cross of the Legion of Honour has come along for a little air raid into the Black Forest with a charming pilote-aviateur named Laval. It was really only a sort of joy ride, but I managed to bring Laval back after he was hit. Thank goodness, they tell me he's almost well again, and I must say I like the French awfully.

"I never told you anything about that business, because I was afraid you might think I was risking my neck unnecessarily, but you know, dear, one's got to do it on a job like this. And oh, I say, what a pig I am, gassing about myself before I tell you that dear old Bob is coming over with us to receive the M.C. It's an awfully pretty thing with silver-and-blue ribbon—and—though mind you, mater, this is not to be put about yet in case it doesn't come off—but there's a strong rumour round here that the Governor's to have a division! Haig was awfully delighted at the way he handled that business about a month ago—I mean when we downed your old friend Van Drissel. Hope you are not running any more refugees, eh, what? Now be at the station to meet us, and if you like to kiss Hawke, you may. He's saved my life more than once."