er for
you.

(_The children dance away delightedly, while CECIL watches
them, fascinated._)

MOTHER EARTH. What's this absurd young man doing, sitting behind that
ugly wall? Why don't he sit under a tree if he must sit?

FATHER SUN. Oh, he's a lunatic! Must be.

(RANDOM BULLET _jumps over the sandbags into the dug-out, and
jibbers impotently at_ CECIL, _who glances up at him with a
look of disgust._)

RANDOM BULLET. Ping! Ping. It's me he's afraid of. He daren't stir a
yard from this wall, or I'd tear his brains out. Ping! Ping!

MOTHER EARTH. Who are you, Monster?

RANDOM BULLET. I'm Random Bullet. I _am_ a monster, I am! Ping!

MOTHER EARTH. Who sent you, anyway?

RANDOM BULLET. Why, the idiots behind the other wall, over there!
Sometimes I jump at them, and sometimes I jump over here. I don't care
which way it is; but I like tearing their brains out, I do. I don't
care which lot it is.

MOTHER EARTH. What madness!

FATHER SUN (_indignantly_). On my day too!

RANDOM BULLET. Mad! I should think they were! Never mind, they give me
some fun! Ping! So long, I'm off, going to jump at the other fellows,
back in a second if you like to wait.

(RANDOM BULLET _jumps out of sight, and_ MOTHER EARTH _and_
FATHER SUN _move disgustedly away._)

CECIL (_getting up_). Mad! By God, we are mad! Curse the war! Curse
the fools who started it! Why did I ever come out here? What a way to
spend a morning in June!

(_Curtain._)

ACT II. MIDDAY

SCENE. _The same._ CECIL _as before, but sweltering in the
sun. Enter the_ SPIRIT OF THIRST.

THIRST. Oh for a drink! Water, anything! I could drink a bath full.
What a place to spend a June day in! When one thinks of all the drinks
one might be having, it is really infuriating. Gad! The very thought
of 'em makes me feel quite poetic! Think of the great barrels of still
cider in cool Devonshire cellars! Think of the sour refreshing wine
we used to get in Italy! And the iced cocktails of Colombo! And Pimm's
No. 1 in the City. Anywhere but here it's a pleasure to be a Thirst;
but here! Good Lord, it will send me off my head. How would a bath
go now, old chap? By God, don't you wish you were back in your canoe,
drawn up among the rushes near Islip, and you just going to plunge
into the cool waters of the Char? Or think of that day you bathed in
the deep still pool at the foot of the Tamarin Falls, with the water
crashing down above you,