wn
the trench about fifty yards. So we'll try trail-left a piece--or
would if this old drain-pipe had a trail.'

He relaid his mortar carefully, and fired again. Having no sights or
arrangement whatever for laying beyond a general look over the line of
its barrel and a pinch more or less of powder in the charge, it can
only be called a piece of astounding good luck that the jam-pot bomb
fell almost fairly on the top of the German mortar. There was a most
satisfying uproar and eddying volume of smoke and eruption of earth,
and the lieutenant stared through a loophole dumb-founded with delight.

'I'll swear,' he said, 'that our old Plum-and-Apple pot never made a
burst that big. I do believe it must have flopped down on the other
fellow and blown up one or two of his bombs same time. I say, isn't
that the most gorgeous good luck? Well, good enough to go on with.
We'll have a chance for some peaceful practice now?'

Apparently, since the other mortar ceased to fire, it must have been
put out of action, and the lieutenant spent a useful hour pot-shotting
at the other trench.

The shooting was, to say the least, erratic. With apparently the same
charge and the same tilt on the mortar, one bomb would drop yards short
and another yards over. If one in three went within three yards of the
trench, if one in six fell in the trench, it was, according to the
lieutenant, a high average, and as much as any man had a right to
expect. But at the end of the hour, the Asterisks, who had been hugely
enjoying the performance, and particularly the cessation of German
bombs, were horrified to hear a double report from the German trench,
and to see two dark blobs fall twinkling from the sky.

The following hour was a nightmare. Their trench-mortar was completely
out-shot. Those fiendish bombs rained down one after the other along
the trench, burst in devastating circles of flame and smoke and
whirling metal here, there, and everywhere.

The lieutenant replied gallantly. A dozen times he had to shift
position, because he was obviously located, and was being deliberately
bombarded.

But at last the gunner officer had to retire from the contest. His
mortar showed distinct signs of going to pieces--the muzzle-end having
begun to split and crack, and the breech-end swelling in a
dangerous-looking bulge.

'Look at her,' said the lieutenant disgustedly. 'Look at her opening
out an' unfolding herself like a split-lipped ox-eye