sides, and his work that day was so fidgety, and he made
so many mistakes in getting the ranges on the sights, that the Major
performed the _coup d'etat_ for which we were all anxiously waiting by
transmitting as quickly as he could to headquarters his recommendation
that he be retired, and Hambone, to our immense relief, was shipped back
to England.

CHAPTER X

BEES, HONEY AND HELL

On Tuesday, August 29, 1916, my battery pulled into Martinsaart, in the
Somme district, which lies three miles immediately west of Thiepval. The
Battle of the Somme had been raging since July 1. We took up our
position in a beautiful orchard, its trees laden down with apples, and
along the hedge on one side of the orchard were ten beehives, humming
and throbbing with busy bee life. Underneath some large apple trees we
placed our guns and the thickly woven hedge right in front of us gave us
a splendidly concealed nook; through the hedge we cut a hole for our
beauty's nozzle.

At 5:15 in the afternoon we started registering our "love letters," in
preparation for another phase of the big bombardment which had been more
or less continuously in operation since the commencement of the battle,
and after accomplishing our purpose we got a "stand down." The apples
clustering on the trees looked as tempting to us as did the apple of
our first father and before we started registering, every man in the
battery had mentally made his tree selection as the one he would climb
as soon as he got a minute to himself. It was unnecessary to climb,
however; with the advent of the explosion of our guns, the concussion
shook the trees as with a strong wind and the luscious fruit showered
upon our heads in abundance.

Then we cleaned up our guns, munching the red apples, and the enemy
planes were humming like bees over our heads, darting here and there
like bats, trying to find our place of concealment, but we were too well
hidden. When night fell, McLean and I started for the rear, passing the
hives on our way. "By, Golly, Grant, here's a chance for a mouthful; I
know how to handle this proposition," and he made for the hives. He
lifted off the top, with the bees flying all around, and handed me the
top to hold while he inserted his hand and took out a comb, which he
passed over to me, saying, "Take this till I get another, the damned
bees are stinging me." Thousands were around him. I took it and started
on the dead run for my billet, about 400 yar