THE FOUR MEN crouched together in the narrow shadow of the parapet.  The sun was setting slowly behind a curtain of greasy cloud, and the air, as always at twilight, was very clear and still.  A hundred and fifty yards away was the dirty gray earth where the Riffs were hidden.  The declining sun threw long fingers of queer, brassy light across the rise of the hill behind them.

On their left the trench was blown away by artillery fire; here and there a foot or a shoulder showed above the dirt thrown up by explosions.  They had marched, eaten, and fought beside those men, dead now.

"Better keep your head away from that opening, kid, or you'll get it blown away."

Dugan pulled his head back, and almost on the instant a spout of sand leaped from the sandbag and splattered over his face.

Slim smiled wryly, and the Biscayan looked up from the knife he was sharpening.  He was always sharpening his knife and kept it with a razor edge.  Short, thick-bodied, he had a square-jawed, pockmarked face and small eyes.  Dugan was glad they were fighting on the same side.

"You got anything to eat?" Slim asked suddenly, looking over at Dugan.

"Nothing.  I ate my last biscuit before that last attack," he said.  "I could have eaten forty."

"You?"  Slim looked at the Irishman.

Jerry shrugged.  "I ate mine so long ago I've forgotten."

He was bandaging his foot with a soiled piece of his shirt.  A bullet had clipped the butt of his heel the day before, making a nasty wound.

Somewhere down the broken line of trenches there was a brief volley followed by several spaced rifle shots, then another brief spatter of firing.

Slim was wiping the dust from his rifle, testing the action.  Then he reloaded, taking his time.  "They're tough," he said, "real tough."

"I figured they'd be A-rabs or black," Jerry said, "and they ain't either one."

"North Africa was never black," Dugan said, "Nearly all the country north of the Niger is Berber country, and Berbers are white.  These Riffs - there's as many redheaded ones as in Scotland."

"I was in Carthage once," Slim said.  "It's all busted up - ruins."

"They were Semitic," Dugan said.  "Phoenicians originally."

"How you know so much about it?" Slim asked.

"There was a book somebody left in the barracks all about this country and the Sahara."

"You can have it," Jerry said.  "This country, I mean."

"Book belonged to that colonel - the fat one."  Dugan moved a small stone, settled himself more comfortably.  "He let it lay one time, and somebody swiped it."

"Hey!"  Jerry sat up suddenly.  He held the bandage tight to survey the job he was doing, then continued with it.  "That reminds me.  I know where there's some wine"

Slim turned his long neck.  "Some what?"