off like a packet o' crackers, one wagon after the
other. An' when we came up, all that was left o' that column was a reek
o' sulphur an' a hole in the road."

'"That's cheerful," sez the Left'nant. "With us loaded down to the
gunn'l wi' lyddite, an' the prospect o' being a target for every German
gun within range o' this road." He fidgeted in his saddle a bit, an'
then, "I suppose," he sez, "they'll calculate our pace an' the distance
we've moved since this airman saw us, an' they'll shell the section o'
road just ahead of us now to glory. I'd halt for a bit just to cheat
'em, for they'll shoot by the map without seein' us. But that
requisition for lyddite was urgent, wasn't it?"

'I told him it was so, an' the Battery captain had told me to get it in
quick to the column.

'"Then we'll just have to push on an' chance it," sez the Left'nant,
"though I must own I do hate being made a helpless runnin'-deer target to
every German gunner that likes to coco-nut shy at me. . . . Like a
packet o' crackers. . . . Good Lord!"

'We plodded on, the Left'nant spurrin' his horse on and reinin' him back,
an' cockin' his ear for the first shell bumpin' on the road. Nothin'
happened for quite a bit after that, an' I was just about beginnin' to
feel satisfied that the Germ bird 'ad run into a streak o' air that our
anti-aircraft guns kept strickly preserved an' that they'd served a
Trespassers-will-be-Spiflicated notice on 'im an' had punctured him an'
his wings. But just as we rounded a curve an' came into a long straight
piece o' the road, I hears a high-risin' swoosh an' before it finished
an' before the bang o' the burst reached us, spout goes a cloud o' black
smoke 'way far down the road.'

'"This," says the Left'nant, "is goin' to be highly interestin', not to
say excitin', presently. I figure that's either a four-point-two or a
five-point-nine-inch high-explosive Hun. An' there's another o' the dose
from the same bottle, an' about a hundred yards this way along the road.
I dunno how their high-explosive will mix wi' ours, but if they get one
direct hit on a wagon we'll know all about it pretty quick. A Brock's
Crystal Palace firework show won't be in it wi' the ensooin' performance.
An' that remark o' yours, bombardier, about a packet o' crackers recurs
to my min' wi' most disquietin' persistency. 'An' still they come,' as
the poet remarks."

'They was comin' too, an' no fatal error. No hurry about 'em, but a