A General Action

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But on this last morning, when the sap had approached to within twenty or thirty feet of the white head which was its objective, the Colonel's attention was directed to the matter somewhat forcibly. He heard the roar of exploding heavy shells, and as the "crump, crump," continued steadily, he telephoned from the headquarters dug-out in rear of the support line to ask the forward trenches what was happening.

While he waited an answer, a message came from the Brigade saying that the artillery had reported heavy German shelling on a sap-head, and demanding to know what, where, and why was the sap-head referred to. While the Colonel was puzzling over this mysterious message and vainly trying to recall any sap-head within his sector of line, the regimental Padre came into the dug-out.

"I've just come from the dressing station," he said, "and there's a boy there, McRory, that has me fair bewildered with his ravings. He's wounded in the head with a shrapnel splinter, and, although he seems sane and sensible enough in other ways, he's been begging me and the doctor not to send him back to the hospital. Did ever ye hear the like, and him with a lump as big as the palm of my hand cut from his head to the bare bone, and bleeding like a stuck pig in an apoplexy?"

The Colonel looked at him vacantly, his mind between this and the other problem of the Brigade's message.

"And that's not all that's in it," went on the Padre. "The doctor was telling me that there's been a round dozen of the past two days' casualties begging that same thing--not to be sent away till we come out of the trenches. And to beat all, McRory, when he was told he was going just the minute the ambulance came, had a confab with the stretcher bearers, and I heard him arguing with them about 'his share,' and 'when they got the Gineral,' and 'my bit o' the fifty thousand francs.' It has me beat completely."

By now the Colonel was completely bewildered, and he began to wonder whether he or his battalion were hopelessly mad. It was extraordinary enough that the men should have dug so willingly and well, and without a grumble being heard or a complaint made.

It was still more extraordinary that more or less severely wounded men should not be ardently desirous of the safety and comfort and feeding of the hospitals; and on the top of all was this mysterious message of a sap apparently being made by his men voluntarily and without any sanction, much less the usual required pressure.

A message came from Captain Conroy, in the forward trench, to say that Riley was coming up to headquarters and would explain matters.

Riley and the explanation duly arrived. "Ould Prickles," inclined at first to be mightily wroth at the unauthorized digging of the sap, caught a twinkle in the Padre's eye; and a modest hint from the Little Lad reminding him of the speed and excellence of the new trenches, construction turned the scale. He burst into a roar of laughter, and the Padre joined him heartily, while the Little Lad stood beaming and chuckling complacently.