Corporal O’Halloran checked his ammunition pouches automatically again. Two clips: ten rounds. There were ten more in the .303 Lee-Enfield’s magazine and one up the spout. No point in asking the others for more—they had little enough ammunition themselves. Anyway, they had done their job and their only task now was to get back to the British lines.  Behind him was the noise of the river over the collapsed stonework of the bridge they had destroyed. That could hide the sound of enemy footsteps as well as of their own. Otherwise there was silence apart from a few distant bird-calls.…