He fumbled for his matches and
lit it, and we were both stricken dumb for the moment; our chum was
lying stone dead with a hole squarely in his forehead. The gentleman in
the haystack was surely doing good work for his Kaiser.
Just before daylight we had a call from the O.C., accompanied by three
or four men; he had phoned us he was coming. He wanted all particulars
regarding my previous message. Under cover of the hedge we got to within
fifty yards of the stack and everybody was convinced of the certainty of
the information I had given, for, as we watched, two more flashes came
from the stack. Not a particle of doubt was left and the officer ordered
a bomb thrown into the haystack. Inside of a minute the red flames
began shooting out from all sides, in another minute it was ablaze, and
in five minutes we had the joy and satisfaction of hearing the muffled
shriek of the soldier who had so well served his Kaiser.
This ended for me a busy first night in the front line.
When the ashes of the fire were searched we found the charred body of a
man, the remains of a rifle and a complete set of telephone apparatus,
which was traced to our trenches, and from there to the German lines.
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