Jim and Wally found a chink in the sandbag parapet, and looked out eagerly ahead. All was quiet. The sparrows, made bold by the extraordinary peace of the morning, still chirped and twittered on No-Man’s Land. No sound came from the German trenches beyond. Here and there a faint smoke-wreath curled lazily into the air, telling of cooking-fires and breakfast.
“How do they know they’re coming?” Wally whispered.
“Aeroplane reconnaissance, I suppose,” Jim answered, pointing to two or three specks floating in the blue overhead, far out of reach of the anti-aircraft guns. “They’ve been hovering up there all the morning. Feeling all right, Wal?”
“Fit as a fiddle. I suppose I’ll be in a blue funk presently, but just now I feel as if I were going to a picnic.”
“So do I—and the men are keen as mustard. I thought little Wilson would be useless; you know how jumpy he’s been since we came here. But look at him, there; he’s as steady and cool as any sergeant. They’re good boys,” said the subaltern, who was not yet twenty.
“Mind your ’ead, sir!” came in an agonized whisper from a corporal below; and Jim ducked obediently under the lee of the parapet.
“It’s quite hot,” he said, peering again through his peep-hole. “There’s a jolly breeze springing up, though.”
The breeze came softly over No-Man’s Land, fluttering the wings of the cheerful sparrows. Across the scarred strip of grass a low, green cloud wavered upwards. It grew more solid, spreading in a dense wall over the parapet of the German trench.
The green cloud seemed to hesitate. Then the wind freshened a little, and it suddenly blew forward across No-Man’s Land, growing denser as it came. Before it, the sparrows fled suddenly, darting to the upper air with shrill chirpings of alarm. But one bird, taken unawares, beat his wings wildly for a moment, flying forward. Then he pitched downwards and the cloud rolled over him.
Before the parapet of the British trench ahead of them the cloud stood for a moment, and then toppled bodily into the trench. It fell as water falls like a heavy thing. From its green depths came hoarse shouts, and rifles suddenly went off in an irregular fusillade. Then the cloud rolled over, leaving the trench full of vapour, and stole towards the second British line.