Two Englishmen here sitting in my trench--truth itself! Well, what about the Second 'Rota'?
Are they coming down ?...

_Yeh Bogu_, I don't know! What do you say ?..." The young officer, in a very gentle and melodious voice, offered Trenchard, who was sitting next to him, some supper.
"One of these cutlets ?" Trenchard, blushing and stammering, refused.
"A cigarette, then ?" Trenchard again refused and Piotr Ivanovitch, having done his duty, relapsed into his muffled elegance.

We sat very quietly there; Trenchard staring with distressed eyes in front of him.

Andrey Vassilievitch, very uncomfortable, his fat body sliding forward on the slant, pulling itself up, then sliding again--always he maintained his air of importance, giving his cough, twisting the ends of his moustache, staring, fiercely, at some one suddenly that he might disconcert him, patting, with his plump little hands, his clothes.
The shadows lengthened and a great green oak that hung over the barn seemed, as the evening advanced, to grow larger and larger and to absorb into its heart all the flaming colours of the day, to press them into its dark shadow and to hide them, safe and contented, until another morning.
I sat there and gradually, caught, as it seemed to me, into a world of whispers and half-lights, I slipped forward a little down into the dark walls of the trench and half-slumbered, half clung still to the buzzing voice of the Colonel, the languid replies of the young officer.

I felt then that some one was whispering to me that my real adventure was about to begin.