ackers were showing signs of impatience, and we were
both lathering freely. Then by some happy chance we discovered we had both
been in Africa, fell crowing into each other's arms, and the local tactical
situation was cleared "one time" in flowing Swahili. Our respective
reputations as linguists are now beyond doubt.

We became fast friends, this Captain and I. He bore me off to his cellar,
stood me the usual six-course feed (with wines), and after it was over
asked how I would like to while away the afternoon. I left it in his hands.
"Eh bien, let us play on the Bosch a little," he suggested. It sounded as
pleasant a light after-dinner amusement as any, so I bowed and we sallied
forth.

He led me to his observation post, spoke down a telephone, and about twenty
yards of Hun parapet were not. "That will spoil his siesta," said my
Captain. "By the way, his Headquarters is behind that ruined farm,"

"Which?" I inquired; there were several farms about, none of them in any
great state of repair.

"I will show you--watch," he replied, talked into the 'phone again, and far
away a cloud, a cloud of brick dust, smoked aloft. "_Voila!_"

He thereupon pointed out all the objects of local interest in the same
fashion.

"We will now give him fifty rounds for luck, and then we will return to my
cellar for a cup of coffee," said he, and a further twenty yards of Hun
parapet were removed.

Suddenly there came an answering salvo from Hunland, and a flock of shells
whizzed over our heads.

"Tiens!" my Captain exclaimed. "He has lost his little temper, has he?
Naughty, naughty! I must give him a slap. A hundred rounds!" he shouted
into the 'phone, and the German lines spouted like a school of whales
blowing.

Again the Bosch slammed across a heavy reply. My Captain leapt to his
'phone. "He would answer me back, would he? The impudence! Give him a
_thousand_ rounds, my children!"

Then for the next hour or so the sky was filled with a screaming tornado of
shells, rushing, bumping, and bursting, and the Bosch lines sagged, bulged,
quivered, slopped over, and were spattered against the blue in small
smithereens.

"And now let us see what he says to that," said my Captain pleasantly. We
waited, we watched, we listened; but there came no reply (possibly because
there was no one left to make one), and my Captain turned to me, shoulders
shrugged, palms outspread, a grimace of apologetic disgust on his mobile
face--like a circus-ma