ubalterns walked along
the whole row of huts and lobbed stones on to the roofs. The idea was
to suggest to the inmates that bombs were falling in large numbers.
It was a well-conceived scheme; for the roofs of those huts were of
corrugated iron and the stones made an abominable noise. But I do not
think that any one was deceived. A major next door to me swore
vehemently.

Our French neighbours did not take much notice of these alarms. The
row of lamps in the little railway station near the camp shone
cheerfully while we were plunged in gloom. The inhabitants of the
houses on the hill at the far side of the valley did not even take
the trouble to pull down their window blinds. Either the French are
much less afraid of Zeppelins than we are or they never heard the
alarms which caused us so much inconvenience. These scares became
very frequent in the early spring of 1916 and always worried us.

After a while some one started a theory that there never had been any
Zeppelins in our neighbourhood and that none were likely to come. It
was possible that our local Head-Quarters Staff was simply playing
tricks on us. An intelligent staff officer would, in time, be almost
sure to think of starting a Zeppelin scare if he had not much to
occupy his mind. He would defend his action by saying that an alarm
of any kind keeps men alert and is good for discipline.

But staff officers, though skilful in military art, are not always
well up in general literature. Ours, perhaps, had never read the
"Wolf, wolf," fable, and did not anticipate the result of their
action. As time went on we took less and less notice of the Zeppelin
warnings until at last the whole thing became a joke. If a Zeppelin
had come to us towards the end of March it would have had the whole
benefit of all the lights which shone through our tents and windows,
whatever that guidance might be worth.

The Zeppelins which did not come caused us on the whole more
annoyance than the submarines which did. It was, of course,
irritating when the English post did not arrive at the usual hour. It
always did arrive in the end--being carried by some other route,
though our own proper steamer neither went in nor out.

But if we, the regular inhabitants of the place, suffered little
inconvenience from the submarines, the officers and men who passed
through the town on their way home on leave were sometimes held up
for days. The congestion became acute. Beds were very difficult to