It may be holding now.

Everybody took a hand at clearing the table. The lamp was burning low,
and they filled it without putting it out. One of the things that I
have always been taught is never to fill a lighted lamp. I explained
this to them carefully. But they were quite calm. It seems at the
front one does a great many extraordinary things. It is part and
parcel of that utter indifference to danger that comes with war.

Now appeared the chauffeur, who brought the information that the car
had been dragged out of the mud and towed as far as the house.

"Towed?" I said blankly.

"Towed, madame. There is no more petrol."

The major suggested that we kill him at once. But he was a perfectly
good chauffeur and young. Also it developed that he had not sat on my
hat. So we let him live.

"Never mind," said Miss C----; "we can give you the chauffeur's bed
and he can go somewhere else."

But after a time I decided that I would rather walk back than stay
overnight in that house. For the major explained that at eleven
o'clock the batteries behind the town would bombard the German
trenches and the road behind them, along which they had information
that an ammunition train would pass.

"Another night in the cellar!" said some one. "That means no one will
need any beds, for there will be a return fire, of course."

"Is there no petrol to be had?" I inquired anxiously.

"None whatever."

None, of course. There had been shops in the town, and presumably
petrol and other things. But now there was nothing but ruined walls
and piles of brick and mortar. However, there was a cellar.

My feet were swollen and painful, for the walk had been one long
agony. I was chilled, too, from my wetting, in spite of the fire. I
sat by the tiny stove and tried to forget the prospect of a night in
the cellar, tried to ignore the pieces of shell and shrapnel cases
lined up on the mantelpiece, shells and shrapnel that had entered the
house and destroyed it.

The men smoked and talked. An officer came up from the trenches to
smoke his after-dinner pipe, a bearded individual, who apologised for
his muddy condition. He and the major played a duet. They made a great
fuss about their preparation for it. The stool must be so, the top of
the cracked piano raised. They turned and bowed to us profoundly. Then
sat down and played--CHOP STICKS!

But that was only the beginning. For both of them were accomplished
musicians. The major played divin