about
midnight
`` No , sir , '' Dellarme replied . `` Mind the signal to the batteries -- keep the men screened -- warn them not to let their first baptism of shell fire shake their nerves ! '' the colonel added in a final repetition of instructions already indelibly impressed on the captain 's mind . Moving cautiously through a cut , Dellarme 's company came , about midnight , to a halt among the stubble of a wheat-field behind a knoll . After he had bidden the men to break ranks , he crept up the incline . `` Yes , it 's there ! '' he whispered when he returned .