“Hullo,” said Kentucky loudly. “Artillery. Where are you, sir?”
“Hullo,” answered the voice. “Who is there?” and from a tumbled pile of sandbags at the end of the broken wall a head was cautiously raised. “Do you want me? Keep down out of sight. I don’t want this place spotted.”
Kentucky was creeping carefully towards him when a sepulchral voice from underground somewhere made him jump. “Beg pardon, sir. Didn’t catch that last order, sir.”
“All right, Ridley,” said the officer. “I was talking to some one up here”; and to Kentucky, “What is it?”
Kentucky gave his message briefly. “Right,” said the officer, pulling out a soiled map. “Come along beside me here, and see if you can point the spot from here. Careful now. Keep down. If they spot this for an Oh Pip[2] they’ll shell us off the earth.”
The officer was a young man, although under the mask of dirt and mud splashes and unshaven chin he might have been any age. He was sprawled against a broken-down breastwork of fallen bricks and timber, with a rough strengthening and buttressing of sandbags, and an irregular shaped opening opposite his head to look out from. Kentucky sidled to the opening and looked long and carefully for landmarks on the smoke-clouded ground before him. He found the task difficult, because here he was on slightly higher ground, from which the aspect appeared utterly different to the little he had seen of it from below. But at last he was able to trace more or less the points over which he had passed, to see some of the Anzacs crouching in their cover and moving cautiously about behind it, and from that to locate the Stonewalls’ position and the rough earth heaps--which now he could see formed part of an irregular line of trench--where the machine-guns were supposed to be. He pointed the place out to the officer, who looked carefully through his glasses, consulted his map, looked out again.
“Likely enough spot,” he commented. “It’s been well strafed with shell fire already, but I suppose they have their guns down in deep dugouts there. Anyhow, we’ll give ’em another going over. Ridley!”
“Sir,” answered the voice from below. “Stop. Fresh target. Machine-guns in trench. All guns....” and followed a string of orders about degrees and yards which Kentucky could not follow. “Now you watch the spot,” said the officer when the voice had reported “All ready, sir,” and he had settled himself in position with glasses to his eyes. “Watch and see if the shells land about the place you think the guns are.” He passed an order to fire, and a few seconds later said sharply, “There! See them?”