The Seed of Empire by Fred M. White

It was an hour later that the little knot of men following Kemp and Bentley and Ginger, mightily conscious of his fresh importance, climbed noiselessly out of the trench and plunged into a field of beetroot where there was ample cover. It was not very dark, and when their eyes became accustomed to the gloom they could make out, beyond the field, a long upward sweep of stubble fringed away to the right by a big wood. A spur of this ran down the hillside, and it was here, so far as Kemp could make out, that the guns lay. In the deceptive light the spot did not seem very far away, though, according to what Venables said, it must have been a good two miles. Below the wood was a tangle of bracken, and it was here that the convoy bringing up ammunition to the Musketeers' trenches had been literally blown into fragments by the German gun-fire. Apparently the enemy had made no further attempt to possess themselves of the damaged wagon, probably being confident that the matter could wait, and that before morning there would not be a single English soldier within miles of the place.

"It's a good thing they don't know, " Kemp muttered. "If they found out that our chaps yonder had run out of cartridges there wouldn't be one left in ten minutes. However, they don't know, and that's in our favour. Venables, do you mean to tell me that that hill is two miles away?"