sir!"

"Fire!"

"Fire!" Then, politely--"Number one has fired, sir."

The major stiffens to his periscope, and Bobby Little, deeply
interested, wonders what has become of the report of the gun. He
forgets that sound does not travel much faster than a thousand feet
a second, and that the guns are a mile and a half back. Presently,
however, there is a distant boom. Almost simultaneously the lyddite
shell passes overhead with a scream. Bobby, having no periscope,
cannot see the actual result of the shot, though he tempts Providence
(and Zacchaeus) by peering over the top of the parapet.

"Number one, two-nothing minutes more right," commands the major.
"Same range and charge."

Once more the orderly goes through his ritual, and presently another
shell screams overhead.

Again the major observes the result.

"Repeat!" he says. "Nothing-five seconds more right."

This time he is satisfied.

"Parallel lines on number one," he commands crisply. "One round
battery fire--twenty seconds!"

For the last time the order is passed down the wire, and the major
hands his periscope to the ever-grateful Bobby, who has hardly got
his eyes to the glass when the round of battery fire commences.
One--two--three--four--the avenging shells go shrieking on their way,
at intervals of twenty seconds. There are four muffled thuds, and four
great columns of earth and _debris_ spring up before the wood. Answer
comes there none. The offending battery has prudently effaced itself.

"Cease fire!" says the major, "and register!" Then he turns to Captain
Blaikie.

"That'll settle them for a bit," he observes. "By the way, had any
more trouble with Minnie?"

"We had Hades from her yesterday," replies Blaikie, in answer to this
extremely personal question. "She started at a quarter-past five in
the morning, and went on till about ten."

(Perhaps, at this point, it would be as well to introduce Minnie a
little more formally. She is the most unpleasant of her sex, and her
full name is _Minenwerfer_, or German trench-mortar. She resides,
spasmodically, in Unter den Linden. Her extreme range is about two
hundred yards, so she confines her attentions to front-line trenches.
Her _modus operandi_ is to discharge a large cylindrical bomb into
the air. The bomb, which is about fifteen inches long and some eight
inches in diameter, describes a leisurely parabola, performing
grotesque somersaults on the way, and finally falls with a soft thud
into