* * *
Everybody was in the Signal dug-out (Signals build deep and strong).
Secretly the clerks were praying for the disintegration of the
typewriter and the total destruction of the overwhelming mass of paper
(paper warfare had been terrible of late). The Staff Captain and
the O.C. Gum Boots, who had been approaching the Headquarters, were
already half a mile down the road and still going strong.

The Division rang up. One need hardly have mentioned that. In times of
stress the higher formations rarely fail.

"What's going on?" they asked.

The Brigade Major was just going to say, when suddenly he remembered.
That very morning he had been severely strafed for speaking of
important things over the telephone when so near the enemy. "Had he
not read the Divisional G 245/348/24 of the 29th inst.? What was the
good of issuing orders to defeat the efficiency of the Bosch listening
apparatus if they were not obeyed?" etc., etc.

True, it was conceivable that even without the aid of a delicate
listening apparatus the Bosch was cognisant of an explosion that
made his whole front line quiver; still orders is orders. So the
Brigade-Major swallowed hard.

"C-can't tell you over the wires. Your G 245/348/24...."

"Yes, yes, we know all about that. Don't say it _definitely_, but give
us an _idea_. _Where_ is all this noise?"

"Here!--Oh!" piped the B.M. as a crump shook the receiver out of his
hand.

"Send it in code at once. The G.O.C. is strafing horribly to know."

To encode a message which may be your last words on earth is not the
easiest of tasks. It has no romance about it. Who would relish
an obituary such as: "He died like a hero, his last words being
'XB35/067K'"?

To the ramping of the continuous crump the B.M. scraped away the dirt
and stuff that had fallen from the throbbing walls of his dug-out
and fished out the Code-Book. Hurriedly he turned over the pages to
"Ammunition" and read down the set phrases and their code equivalents.
Four times he relit the candle. There seemed nothing under this
heading applicable to the situation. "Send up" was one, but that had
already been done. "Am/is/are/running short of" was another, but it
was doubtful if the Division would see the real meaning of it.

"Ah, here we are," he muttered, relighting the candle for the fifth
time. "Dumps." Alas, there was nothing to convey the situation very
clearly even under this heading. Finally he picked out the neare