Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/162

 smoke, with a suggestion of gas, fought with the rain for supremacy.

Dirk Dock stuck his head out from under a half-ruined slicker. "Merry Christmas!" he bellowed.

Enoch smiled bitterly. "Christmas," he repeated.

Joe Tooks leaned over and smashed Dirk on the chin with a dirt-encrusted fist.

"Yo' should have yo' ears chopped off fo' dat," he drawled.

This had happened during a lull in the pandemonium. But now the whirr of shells, the cries of the dying, the roar of big guns, a ceaseless, deafening screech that seemed to die down occasionally to a moan. Enoch crouched low as the shells came whistling by accompanied by the incessant patter of machineguns. Once a bit of shrapnel grazed the cheek of Dirk Dock who stood beside him. Constantly they were spattered with mud as bombs burst near them.

Enoch was thinking of the last letter he had received from his mother. She was sending