As he spoke he picked up two of the bombs from a fresh box and held
them to the lighter. As he plunged out a shower of bullets spattered
the trench wall about him, but without heeding these he began to throw.
As the roar of the bursting bombs began, the bullets slowed down and
ceased. "Keep the lights blazing," Rawbon paused to shout to the man
with the pistol flares. "You slide out for the home base, Loo-tenant,
and I'll keep 'em too busy to shoot their nasty little guns." He
commenced to hurl the bombs again. Courtenay stepped out and watched a
moment. Bomb after bomb whizzed true and hard across the hollow, just
skimmed the breastwork, struck on the trench wall that showed beyond
and a foot above it, and fell behind the barricade. Billowing
smoke-clouds and gusts of flame leaped and flashed above the parapet.
Courtenay saw the chance and took it. He plunged out into the lake of
mud and plowed through it towards the barricade, the men swarming
behind him, and the sergeant's bombs hurtling with trailing streams of
sparks over their heads.

"Come on, son," said the sergeant. "You carry that box and gimme the
slow match. I pitch better with a little run."

Courtenay reached the barricade and led his men over and round
it without a casualty. The space behind the barricade was
deserted--deserted, that is, except by the dead, and by some
unutterable things that would have been better dead.

The lost portion of trench was recaptured, and more, the defense,
demoralized by that tornado of explosions, was pushed a good fifty
yards further back before the counter-attack was stayed.

At daybreak next morning Courtenay and the sergeant stood together on