time I wondered if he were posing. He spoke:--

"There's only one bad shell, you know," he said. "It hasn't come this
way yet. See that woman?" He pointed at the field where the shell (p. 057)
had exploded. At the far end a woman was working with a hoe, her head
bowed over her work, and her back bent almost double. Two children, a
boy and a girl, came along the road hand in hand, and deep in a
childish discussion. The world, the fighting men, and the bursting
shells were lost to them. They were intent on their own little
affairs. For ourselves we felt more than anything else a sensation of
surprise--surprise because we were not more afraid of the bursting
shrapnel.

"Quick march!"

We got to our feet and resumed our journey. We were now passing
through a village where several houses had been shattered, and one was
almost levelled to the ground. But beside it, almost intact, although
not a pane of glass remained in the windows, stood a _cafe_. A pale
stick of a woman in a white apron, with arms akimbo, stood on the
threshold with a toddling infant tugging at her petticoats.

Several French soldiers were inside, seated round a table, drinking
beer and smoking. One man, a tall, angular fellow with a heavy beard,
seemed to be telling a funny story; all his mates were laughing
heartily. A horseman came up at this moment, one of our soldiers, (p. 058)
and his horse was bleeding at the rump, where a red, ugly gash showed
on the flesh.

"Just a splinter of shell," he said, in answer to our queries. "The
one that burst there," he pointed with his whip towards the field
where the shrapnel had exploded: "'Twas only a whistler."

"What did you think of it," I called to Stoner.

"I didn't know what to think first," was the answer, "then when I came
to myself I thought it might have done for me, and I got a kind of
shock just like I'd get when I have a narrow shave with a 'bus in
London."

"And you, Pryor?"

"I went cold all over for a minute."

"Bill?"

"Oh! Blast them is what I say!" was his answer. "If it's going to do
you in 'twill do you in, and that's about the end of it. Well, sing a
song to cheer us up," and without another word he began to bellow out
one of our popular rhymes.

Oh! the Irish boys they are the boys
To drive the Kaiser balmy.
And _we'll_ smash up that fool Von Kluck
And all his bloomin' army!

We came to a halt again, this time alongside a Red Cross motor (p. 059)
ambulance.