e
something on this wise.

"Well, 'Frightful Fritz'--I mean the Boches, y'know, started bein'
frightful some time ago, y'know--playin' their little tricks with
gas an' tear-shells an' liquid fire an' that, and we left 'em to it.
Y'see, it wasn't cricket--wasn't playin' the game--what! But Fritz
kept at it and was happy as a bird, till one day we woke up an'
started bein' frightful too, only when we did begin we were
frightfuller than ever Fritz thought of bein'--yes, rather! Our gas
is more deadly, our lachrymatory shells are more lachrymose an' our
liquid fire's quite tophole--won't go out till it burns out--rather
not! So Frightful Fritz is licked at his own dirty game. I've tried
his and I've tried ours, an' I know."

Here the sergeant murmured deferentially into the sub.'s ear,
whereupon he beamed again and nodded.

"Everything's quite ready!" he announced, "so if you're on?"

Here, after a momentary hesitation, I signified I was, whereupon our
sub. grew immensely busy testing sundry ugly, grey flannel gas
helmets, fitted with staring eye-pieces of talc and with a hideous
snout in front.

Having duly fitted on these clumsy things and buttoned them well
under our coat collars, having shown us how we must breathe out
through the mouthpiece which acts as a kind of exhaust, our sub.
donned his own headpiece, through which his cheery voice reached me
in muffled tones:

"You'll feel a kind of ticklin' feelin' in the throat at first, but
that's all O.K.--only the chemical the flannel's saturated with. Now
follow me, please, an' would you mind runnin', the rain's apt to
weaken the solution. This way!"

Dutifully we hasted after him, ploughing through the wet sand, until
we came to a heavily timbered doorway that seemingly opened into the
hillside, and, beyond this yawning doorway I saw a thick,
greenish-yellow mist, a fog exactly the colour of strong absinthe;
and then we were in it. K.'s tall figure grew blurred, indistinct,
faded utterly away, and I was alone amid that awful, swirling vapour
that held death in such agonising form.

I will confess I was not happy, my throat was tickling provokingly,
I began to cough and my windpipe felt too small. I hastened forward,
but, even as I went, the light grew dimmer and the swirling fog more
dense. I groped blindly, began to run, stumbled, and in that moment
my hand came in contact with an unseen rope. On I went into gloom,
into blackness, until I was presently aware