"Go out, Hobbs, for a minute," said Barry after they had risen from their prayer. He knew well that Cameron would want a few minutes with him alone.

"Sir," said the boy, and his voice was quiet and steady, "I'm not going to try to thank you, but I believe I can 'carry on' now."

"You bet you can," said Barry, gripping his hand. "You bet you can! It's the point of view after all, old man, isn't it? For ourselves it doesn't matter, but we have got to think of the boys, and we have got to stay with the game."

Eighteen hours later the relief was completed, and the battalion was in its place in the line, all but the sentries asleep in their flimsy dugouts and behind their rotten parapets.

An hour later, Barry, who was sleeping with the M. O. in the regimental aid post, was wakened from a dead sleep by the M. O.

"There's something doing out there," he said. "Listen!"

There was a quick succession of sharp explosions.

"Bombs!" said the M. O.

The explosions were followed by the rat-tat-tat--tat-tat--tat-tat-tat of the machine guns. Instantly they were both on their feet and out in the trench.

"I guess Fritzie is trying to put something over on us, being our first night," said the M. O. "I'll get my boys out."

He ran to the adjoining dugout, where his corporal and stretcher bearers were sleeping, roused them and sent them up the trench. There was the sound of subdued voices and of quick marching feet along the communication trench a few yards away. They stood together listening for a few minutes.

"I'm going," said Barry, hurrying off in the direction of the sound.

"Come on."

"Captain Dunbar," called the M. O. sharply, "my place is here, and I think this is where you will be most useful as well. They will bring the wounded to us right here."

In a few minutes all was still again, except for the machine guns, which still kept up their incessant tattoo.

The M. O. was correct in his forecast. In a few minutes down the communication trench came a wounded man walking, jubilant in spite of his wounds.

"Fritzie tried to put one over on us," he exclaimed, while the doctor was dabbing with iodine and tying up his wounded arm, "but I think he's got another guess coming. You ought to have seen our officer," he added.

"The first one in the bunch to be 'at 'em.' With a bayonet, too, mind you. Grabbed one from a private as he ran past, and bombs bursting like hell all around. Beg pardon, sir," he added, turning to Barry. "He's some kid, poor chap. He's got his, I guess."

"Who is he?" asked the M. O.

"Lieutenant Cameron, sir."

"Cameron!" cried Barry. "Where is he?"

"They are carrying the stretcher cases right down to the dressing station, I hear," said the man.

"I'm going, doc," said Barry, and was off at a run.

At the casualty clearing station there was no excitement, the doctors and orderlies "carrying on" as usual, receiving the wounded, dressing their wounds, sending them down with the smoothness and despatch characteristic of their department.

"Cameron?" said the doctor in answer to Barry's question. "Why certainly, I'll show you." And he led him to Cameron's cot.

"Well, old chap," said the doctor cheerily, "we're going to send you down in a minute or two. Now don't talk."

Cameron's eyes welcomed Barry.

"Dear old boy," said Barry, dropping on his knees beside him. "I'm awfully sorry."

"It's all right," whispered Cameron. "They--never--knew.--You'll write dad--and tell him--I kept--" The voice trailed off into silence. The morphia was doing its merciful work.

"Kept the faith," said Barry.

"Yes," whispered Cameron with a smile, faint but exultant.

"Good old boy," whispered Barry.

"Yes, I--kept--I kept--"

The bearers came to carry out the stretcher.

"Will he recover?" whispered Barry to the doctor.

"Recover? Surest thing you know," said the doctor in a loud cheery voice. "We can't spare this kind of stuff, you know."

And again Barry leaned over the stretcher and said, patting Cameron on the shoulder:

"Good old boy. You make us proud of you. You kept the faith."

CHAPTER XV

THINNING RANKS

"Three months in that hell-hole of the salient have made their mark on this battalion," said Transport Sergeant Mackay.

"Yes, there's quite a lot of these round the first line and back about here," replied the pioneer sergeant, who was putting the finishing touches upon some crosses, that were to be sent up the line that night.

"That's so, Fatty. Whose is that cross you are finishing?"

"That's Lieutenant Salford's, a fine young officer he was, too. Always had a smile. The deeper the mud the more Sally smiled. And this here is Lieutenant Booth's. There's a chap now that picked up wonderful. Two months ago everybody thought he was a big soft slob, and those bombers say that he was all, right. And here's the M. O.'s. Poor old doc! There was a man, now, if there ever was one. He wasn't afraid of nothing. He would go walking about with a smile when a bombardment was on, and in that last big show the other day, they say him and the chaplain--there's another peach--they 'carried on' wonderful. I wasn't around there at the time, but the boys at the dressing station told me that them two worked back and forward getting out the wounded, I think they had about thirty injured up at that time, as if it was a kind of er summer shower that was falling, let alone H. E.'s and whizzbangs, and then after they got the last man out, the M. O. went in with some stretcher bearers, just lookin' around before he left, and a shell came and got 'em all, and they say it was about the last shell that was throwed. And that's where poor Harry Hobbs got his, too. The Pilot went out just a minute before, and when he came back that's what he saw. They say he was terrible cut up over the M. O. Funny thing, the M. O.'s face was just as quiet as if he had gone to sleep, but the rest of the boys, well you could hardly get 'em together, and the Pilot walkin' up and down there lookin' like a lost man. We buried 'em right there by Maple Copse. I want to tell you, sergeant, that that's the hardest job I ever done in this war. The Pilot, he broke right down in the middle of the service. It must have been hard for him. I've been with him now at every funeral and he stands up to his work like a man. He takes it kind of cheery almost, but when we was puttin' down the M. O. and poor Harry, the Pilot just couldn't appear to stand it. I cried like a baby, and you ought to have seen the crowd, the O. C. and the adjutant and the pioneers, and they are all pretty hardened up by this time. They have done enough plantin' anyhow.

They just all went to pieces. The shells was goin' overhead among the trees, something awful, but nobody minded more than if they had been pea-shooters. First time I ever seen the Pilot break, and I have been with him ever since the first one we buried, and that was big Jim Berry.

A sniper got him. You don't remember? I guess you don't see much or get much of the news back here."

"Back here!" exclaimed Sergeant Mackay. "What do you mean, 'back here'?

Don't I have to go up every night with the transport, and through that barridge, too. This aint no 'safety first' job."

"I know, sergeant. I'm not sayin' you ain't at war. Believe me, I'd rather be up front than to go up round Hell Fire Corner and come back by the Menin Gate every night like you fellows. I ain't sayin' nothing about that, but you don't see things that I see, and you don't get the news same as I do. Now, about Jim Berry, you know, he was goin' to do some snipin' in place of McCuaig, who went to the machine gun company."

"McCuaig, in the machine gun company! I never heard that."

"Well, that's what I'm sayin'," said Sergeant Matthews, "you don't get some of the chances to get news down here, same as me. You see, when we're sewin' up the boys and fixin' 'em up like, and when we're fixin'