only Toffee could see it. It was quivering like a flag-halliard in a
stiff breeze. He thrust it back in his pocket.

"Doesn't look too sure, does it?" he said grimly. "And my heart is
shaking a sight worse than my hand."

He was interrupted by the arrival of a group of German shells on and
about the section of trench they were in. One burst on the rear lip of
the trench, spattering earth and bullets about them and leaving a
choking reek swirling and eddying along the trench. There was silence
for an instant, and then an officer's voice called from the near
traverse. "Is anybody hit there!" A sergeant shouted back "No, sir,"
and was immediately remonstrated with by an indignant private busily
engaged in scraping the remains of a mud clod from his eye.

"You might wait a minute, Sergeant," he said, "afore you reports no
casualties, just to give us time to look round and count if all our
limbs is left on. And I've serious doubts at this minute whether my eye
is in its right place or bulging out the back o' my head; anyway, it
feels as if an eight-inch Krupp had bumped fair into it."

When the explosion came, Toffee Everton had instinctively ducked and
crouched, but he noticed that Halliday never moved or gave a sign of
the nearness of any danger. Toffee remarked this to him.

"And I don't see," he confessed, "where that fits in with this
hand- and heart-shaking o' yours."

Halliday looked at him curiously.

"If that was the worst," he said, "I could stand it. It isn't. It isn't
the beginning of the least of the worst. If it had fell in the trench,
now, and mucked up half a dozen men, there'd have been something to
squeal about. That's the sort o' thing that breaks a man up--your own
mates that was talking to you a minute afore, ripped to bits and torn
to ribbons. I've seen nothing left of a whole live man but a pair o'
burnt boots. I've seen--" He stopped abruptly and shivered a little.
"I'm not going to talk about it," he said. "I think about it and see it
too often in my dreams as it is. And, besides," he went on, "I didn't
duck that time, because I've learnt enough to know it's too late to
duck when the shell bursts a dozen yards from you. I'm not so much
afraid of dying, either. I've got to die, I've little doubt, before
this war is out; I don't think there's a dozen men in this battalion
that came out with it in the beginning and haven't been home sick or
wounded since. I've seen one-half the battalion wiped out in one
engagement and built up with drafts, and the other half wiped out in
the next scrap. We've lost fifty and sixty and seventy per cent. of our
strength at different times, and I've come through it all without a
scratch. Do you suppose I don't know it's against reason for me to last
out much longer? But I'm not afraid o' that. I'm not afraid of the
worst death I've seen a man die--and that's something pretty bad,
believe me. What I'm afraid of is myself, of my nerve cracking, of my
doing something that will disgrace the Regiment."

The man's nerves were working now; there was a quiver of excitement in
his voice, a grayer shade on his cheek, a narrowing and a restless
movement of his eyes, a stronger twitching of his lips. More shells
crashed sharply; a little along the line a gust of rifle-bullets swept
over and into the parapet; a Maxim rap-rap-rapped and its bullets spat
hailing along the parapet above their heads.

Halliday caught his breath and shivered again.

"That," he said--"that is one of the devils we've got to face
presently." His eyes glanced furtively about him. "God!" he muttered,
"if I could only get out of this! 'Tisn't fair, I tell ye, it isn't
fair to ask a man that's been through what I have to take it on again,
knowing that if I do come through, 'twill be the same thing to go
through over and over until they get me; or until my own sergeant
shoots me for refusing to face it."

Everton had listened in amazed silence--an understanding utterly beyond
him. He knew the name that Halliday bore in the regiment, knew that he
was seeing and hearing more than Halliday perhaps had ever shown or
told to anyone. Shamefacedly and self-consciously, he tried to say
something to console and hearten the other man, but Halliday
interrupted him roughly.

"That's it!" he said bitterly. "Go on! Pat me on the back and tell me
to be a good boy and not to be frightened. I'm coming to it at last:
old Bob Halliday that's been through it from the beginning, one o' the
Old Contemptibles, come down to be mothered and hushaby-baby'd by a
blanky recruit, with the first polish hardly off his new buttons."

He broke off and into bitter cursing, reviling the Germans, the war,
himself and Everton, his sergeant and platoon commander, the O.C., and
at last the regiment itself. But at that the torrent of his oaths broke
off, and he sat silent and shaking for a minute. He glanced sideways at
last at the embarrassed Everton.

"Don't take no notice o' me, chum," he said. "I wasn't speaking too
loud, was I? The others haven't noticed, do you think? I don't want to
look round for a minute."

Everton assured him that he had not spoken too loud, that nobody
appeared to have noticed anything, and that none were looking their
way. He added a feeble question as to whether Halliday, if he felt so
bad, could not report himself as sick or something and escape having to
leave the trench.

Halliday's lips twisted in a bitter grin.

"That would be a pretty tale," he said. "No, boy, I'll try and pull
through once more, and if my heart fails me--look here, I've often
thought o' this, and some day, maybe, it will come to it."

He lifted his rifle and put the butt down in the trench bottom, slipped
his bayonet out, and holding the rifle near the muzzle with one hand,
with the other placed the point of the bayonet to the trigger of the
rifle. He removed it instantly and returned it to its place.

"There's always that," he said. "It can be done in a second, and no
matter how a man's hand shakes, he can steady the point of the bayonet
against the trigger-guard, push it down till the point pushes the
trigger home."

"Do you mean," stammered Everton in amazement--"do you mean--shoot
yourself?"

"Ssh! not so loud," cautioned Halliday. "Yes, it's better than being
shot by my own officer, isn't it?"

Everton's mind was floundering hopelessly round this strange problem.
He could understand a man being afraid; he was not sure that he wasn't
afraid himself; but that a man afraid that he could not face death
could yet contemplate certain death by his own hand, was completely
beyond him.

Halliday drew his breath in a deep sigh.

"We'll say no more about it," he said. "I feel better now; it's
something to know I always have that to fall back on at the worst. I'll
be all right now--until it comes the minute to climb over the parapet."

It was nearly nine o'clock, and word was passed down the line for every
man to get down as low as he could in the bottom of the trench. The
trench they were about to attack was only forty or fifty yards away,
and since the Heavies as well as the Field guns were to bombard, there
was quite a large possibility of splinters and fragments being thrown
by the lyddite back as far as the British trench. At nine, sharp to the
tick of the clock, the _rush, rush, rush_ of a field battery's shells
passed overhead. Because the target was so close, the passing shells
seemed desperately near to the British parapet, as indeed they actually
were. The rush of shells and the crash of their explosion sounded in
the forward trench before the boom of the guns which fired them
traveled to the British trench. Before the first round of this opening
battery had finished, another and another joined in, and then, in a
deluge of noise, the intense bombardment commenced.

Crouching low in the bottom of the trench, half deafened by the uproar,
the men waited for the word to move. The concentrated fire on this
portion of front indicated clearly to the Germans that an attack was
coming, and where it was to be expected. The obviously correct
procedure for the gunners was of course to have bombarded many sections
of front so that no certain clew would be given as to the point of the
coming attack. But this was in the days when shells were very, very
precious things, and gunners had to grit their teeth helplessly, doling
out round by round, while the German gun- and rifle-fire did its worst.
The Germans, then, could see now where the attack was concentrated, and
promptly proceeded to break it up before it was launched. Shells began
to sweep the trench where the Hotwater Guards lay, to batter at their
parapet, and to prepare a curtain of fire along their front.

Everton lay and listened to the appalling clamor; but when the word was
passed round to get ready, he rose to his feet and climbed to the
firing-step without any overpowering sense of fear. A sentence from the
man on his left had done a good deal to hearten him.

"Gostrewth! 'ark at our guns!" he said. "They ain't 'arf pitchin' it
in. W'y, this ain't goin' to be no charge; it's going to be a sort of
merry picnic, a game of ''Ere we go gatherin' nuts in May.' There won't
be any Germans left in them trenches, and we'll 'ave nothin' to do but
collect the 'elmets and sooveneers and make ourselves at 'ome."

"Did you hear that!" Everton asked Halliday. "Is it anyways true, do
you think?"

"A good bit," said Halliday. "I've never seen a bit of German front
smothered up by our guns the way this seems to be now, though I've
often enough seen it the other way. The trench in front should be
smashed past any shape for stopping our charge if the gunners are
making any straight shooting at all."

It was evident that the whole trench shared his opinion, and
expressions of amazed delight ran up and down the length of the
Hotwaters. When the order came to leave the trench, the men were up and
out of it with a bound.

Everton was too busy with his own scramble put to pay much heed to
Halliday; but as they worked out through their own barbed wire, he was
relieved to find him at his side. He caught Everton's look, and
although his teeth were gripped tight, he nodded cheerfully. Presently,
when they were forming into line again beyond the wire, Halliday spoke.

"Not too bad," he said. "The guns has done it for us this time. Come
on, now, and keep your wits when you get across."

In the ensuing rush across the open, Everton was conscious of no
sensation of fear. The guns had lifted their fire farther back as the
Hotwaters emerged from their trench, and the rush and rumble of their
shells was still passing overhead as the line advanced. The German
artillery hardly dared drop their range to sweep the advance, because
of its proximity to their own trench. A fairly heavy rifle-fire was
coming from the flanks, but to a certain extent that was kept down by
some of our batteries spreading their fire over those portions of the
German trench which were not being attacked, and by a heavy rifle- and
machine-gun fire which was pelted across from the opposite parts of the
British line.

From the immediate front, which was the Hotwaters' objective, there was
practically no attempt at resistance until the advance was half-way
across the short distance between the trenches, and even then it was no
more than a spasmodic attempt and the feeble resistance of a few rifles
and a machine-gun. The Hotwaters reached the trench with comparatively
slight loss, pushed into it, and over it, and pressed on to the next
line, the object being to threaten the continuance of the attack, to
take the next trench if the resistance was not too severe, and so to
give time for the reorganization of the first captured trench to resist
the German counter-attack.

Everton was one of the first to reach the forward trench. It had been
roughly handled by the artillery fire, and the men in it made little
show of resistance. The Hotwaters swarmed into the broken ditch,
shooting and stabbing the few who fought back, disarming the prisoners
who had surrendered with hands over their heads and quavering cries of
"Kamerad." Everton rushed one man who appeared to be in two minds
whether to surrender or not, fingering and half lifting his rifle and
lowering it again, looking round over his shoulder, once more raising
his rifle muzzle. Everton killed him with the bayonet. Afterwards he
climbed out and ran on, after the line had pushed forward to the next
trench. There was an awe, and a thrill of satisfaction in his heart as
he looked at his stained bayonet, but, as he suddenly recognized with a
tremendous joy, not the faintest sensation of being afraid. He looked
round grinning to the man next him, and was on the point of shouting
some jest to him, when he saw the man stumble and pitch heavily on his
face. It flashed into Everton's mind that he had tripped over a hidden
wire, and he was about to shout some chaffing remark, when he saw the
back of the man's head as he lay face down. But even that unpleasant
sight brought no fear to him.

There was a stout barricade of wire in front of the next trench, and an
order was shouted along to halt and lie down in front of it. The line
dropped, and while some lay prone and fired as fast as they could at
any loophole or bobbing head they could see, others lit bombs and
tossed them into the trench. This trench also had been badly mauled by
the shells, and the fire from it was feeble. Everton lay firing for a
few minutes, casting side glances on an officer close in front of him,
and on two or three men along the line who were coolly cutting through
the barbed wire with heavy nippers. Everton saw the officer spin round
and drop to his knees, his left hand nursing his hanging right arm.
Everton jumped up and went over to him.

"Let me go on with it, sir," he said eagerly, and without waiting for
any consent stooped and picked up the fallen wire-cutters and set to
work. He and the others, standing erect and working on the wire,
naturally drew a heavy proportion of the aimed fire; but Everton was
only conscious of an uplifting exhilaration, a delight that he should
have had the chance at such a prominent position. Many bullets came
very close to him, but none touched him, and he went on cutting wire
after wire, quickly and methodically, grasping the strand well in the
jaws of the nippers, gripping till the wire parted and the severed ends
sprang loose, calmly fitting the nippers to the next strand.

Even when he had cut a clear path through, he went on working, widening
the breach, cutting more wires, dragging the trailing ends clear. Then
he ran back to the line and to the officer who had lain watching him.

"Your wire-nippers, sir," he said. "Shall I put them in your case for
you?"

"Stick them in your pocket, Everton," said the youngster; "you've done
good work with them. Now lie down here."

All this was a matter of no more than three or four minutes' work. When
the other gaps were completed--the men in them being less fortunate
than Everton and having several wounded during the task--the line rose,
rushed streaming through the gaps and down into the trench. If
anything, the damage done by the shells was greater there than in the
first line, mainly perhaps because the heavier guns had not hesitated
to fire on the second line where the closeness of the first line to the
British would have made risky shooting. There were a good many dead and
wounded Germans in this second trench, and of the remainder many were
hidden away in their dug-outs, their nerves shaken beyond the
sticking-point of courage by the artillery fire first, and later by the
close-quarter bombing and the rush of the cold steel.

The Hotwaters held that trench for some fifteen minutes. Then a weak
counter-attack attempted to emerge from another line of trenches a good
two hundred yards back, but was instantly fallen upon by our artillery
and scourged by the accurate fire of the Hotwaters. The attack broke
before it was well under way, and scrambled back under cover.

Shortly afterwards the first captured trench having been put into some
shape for defense, the advance line of the Hotwaters retired. A small
covering party stayed and kept up a rapid fire till most of the others
had gone, and then climbed through the trench and doubled back after
them.

The officer, whose wire-cutters Everton had used, had been hit rather
badly in the arm. He had made light of the wound, and remained in the
trench with the covering party; but when he came to retire, he found
that the pain and loss of blood had left him shaky and dizzy. Everton
helped him to climb from the trench; but as they ran back he saw from
the corner of his eye that the officer had slowed to a walk. He turned
back and, ignoring the officer's advice to push on, urged him to lean
on him. It ended up by Everton and the officer being the last men in,
Everton half supporting, half carrying the other. Once more he felt a
childish pleasure at this opportunity to distinguish himself. He was
half intoxicated with the heady wine of excitement and success, he
asked only for other and greater and riskier opportunities. "Risk," he
thought contemptuously, "is only a pleasant excitement, danger the
spice to the risk." He asked his sergeant to be allowed to go out and
help the stretcher-bearers who were clearing the wounded from the
ground over which the first advance had been made.

"No," said the Sergeant shortly. "The stretcher-bearers have their job,
and they've got to do it. Your job is here, and you can stop and do
that. You've done enough for one day." Then, conscious perhaps that he
had spoken with unnecessary sharpness, he added a word. "You've made a
good beginning, lad, and done good work for your first show; don't
spoil it with rank gallery play."

But now that the German gunners knew the British line had advanced and
held the captured trench, they pelted it, the open ground behind it,
and the trench that had been the British front line, with a storm of
shell-fire. The rifle-fire was hotter, too, and the rallied defense was
pouring in whistling stream of bullets. But the captured trench, which
it will be remembered was a recaptured British one, ran back and joined
up with the British lines. It was possible therefore to bring up plenty
of ammunition, sandbags, and reinforcements, and by now the defense had
been sufficiently made good to have every prospect of resisting any
counter-attack and of withstanding the bombardment to which it was
being subjected. But the heavy fire drove the stretcher-bearers off the
open ground, while there still remained some dead and wounded to be
brought in.

Everton had missed Halliday, and his anxious inquiries failed to find
him or any word of him, until at last one man said he believed Halliday
had been dropped in the rush on the first trench. Everton stood up and
peered back over the ground behind them. Thirty yards away he saw a man
lying prone and busily at work with his trenching-tool, endeavoring to
build up a scanty cover. Everton shouted at the pitch of his voice,
"Halliday!" The digging figure paused, lifted the trenching-tool and
waved it, and then fell to work again. Everton pressed along the
crowded trench to the sergeant.

"Sergeant," he said breathlessly, "Halliday's lying out there wounded,
he's a good pal o' mine and I'd like to fetch him in."

The Sergeant was rather doubtful. He made Everton point out the digging
figure, and was calculating the distance from the nearest point of the
trench, and the bullets that drummed between.

"It's almost a cert you get hit," he said, "even if you crawl out. He's
got a bit of cover and he's making more, fast. I think--"

A voice behind interrupted, and Everton and the Sergeant turned to find
the Captain looking up at them.

"What's this?" he repeated, and the Sergeant explained the position.

"Go ahead!" said the Captain. "Get him in if you can, and good luck to
you."

Everton wanted no more. Two minutes later he was out of the trench and
racing back across the open.

"Come on, Halliday," he said. "I'll give you a hoist in. Where are you
hit?"

"Leg and arm," said Halliday briefly; and then, rather ungraciously,
"You're a fool to be out here; but I suppose now you're here, you might
as well give me a hand in."

But he spoke differently after Everton had given him a hand, had lifted
him and carried him, and so brought him back to the trench and lowered
him into waiting hands. His wounds were bandaged and, before he was
carried off, he spoke to Everton.

"Good-by, Toffee," he said and held out his left hand, "I owe you a
heap. And look here---" He hesitated a moment and then spoke in tones
so low that Everton had to bend over the stretcher to hear him. "My
leg's smashed bad, and I'm done for the Front and the old Hotwaters. I
wouldn't like it to get about--I don't want the others to think--to
know about me feeling--well, like I told you back there before the
charge."

Toffee grabbed the uninjured-hand hard. "You old frost!" he said gayly,
"there's no need to keep it up any longer now; but I don't mind telling
you, old man, you fairly hoaxed me that time, and actually I believed
what you were saying. 'Course, I know better now; but I'll punch the
head off any man that ever whispers a word against you."

Halliday looked at him queerly. "Good-by, Toffee," he said again, "and
thank ye."



ANTI-AIRCRAFT


"_Enemy airmen appearing over our lines have been turned hack or driven
off by shell fire."_--EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH.


Gardening is a hobby which does not exist under very favorable
conditions at the front, its greatest drawback being that when the
gardener's unit is moved from one place to another his garden cannot
accompany him. Its devotees appear to derive a certain amount of
satisfaction from the mere making of a garden, the laying-out and
digging and planting; but it can be imagined that the most enthusiastic
gardener would in time become discouraged by a long series of
beginnings without any endings to his labors, to a frequent sowing and
an entire absence of reaping.

There are, however, some units which, from the nature of their
business, are stationary in one place for months on end, and here the
gardener as a rule has an opportunity for the indulgence of his
pursuit. In clearing-hospitals, ammunition-parks, and Army Service
Corps supply points, there are, I believe, many such fixed abodes; but
the manners and customs of the inhabitants of such happy resting-places
are practically unknown to the men who live month in month out in a
narrow territory, bounded on the east by the forward firing line and on
the west by the line of the battery positions, or at farthest the
villages of the reserve billets. In any case these places are rather
outside the scope of tales dealing with what may be called the "Under
Fire Front," and it was this front which I had in mind when I said that
gardening did not receive much encouragement at the front. But during
the first spring of the War I know of at least one enthusiast who did
his utmost, metaphorically speaking, to beat his sword into a
plowshare, and to turn aside at every opportunity from the duty of
killing Germans to the pleasures of growing potatoes. He was a gunner
in the detachment of the Blue Marines, which ran a couple of armored
motor-cars carrying anti-aircraft guns.

It is one of the advantages of this branch of the air-war that when a
suitable position is fixed on for defense of any other position, the
detachment may stay there for some considerable time. There are other
advantages which will unfold themselves to those initiated in the ways
of the trench zone, although those outside of it may miss them; but
everyone will see that prolonged stays in the one position give the
gardener his opportunity. In this particular unit of the Blue Marines
was a gunner who intensely loved the potting and planting, the turning
over of yielding earth, the bedding-out and transplanting, the watering
and weeding and tending of a garden, possibly because the greater part
of his life had been lived at sea in touch with nothing more yielding
than a steel plate or a hard plank.

The gunner was known throughout the unit by no other name than Mary,
fittingly taken from the nursery rhyme which inquires, "Mary, Mary,
quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" The similarity between Mary
of the Blue Marines and Mary of the nursery rhyme ends, however, with
the first line, since Blue Marine Mary made no attempt to rear "silver
bells and cockle shells" (whatever they may be) all in a row. His whole
energies were devoted to the raising of much more practical things,
like lettuces, radishes, carrots, spring onions, and any other
vegetable which has the commendable reputation of arriving reasonably
early at maturity.

Twice that spring Mary's labors had been wasted because the section had
moved before the time was ripe from a gardener's point of view, and
although Mary strove to transplant his garden by uprooting the
vegetables, packing them away in a box in the motor, and planting them
out in the new position, the vegetables failed to survive the breaking
of their home ties, and languished and died in spite of Mary's tender
care. After the first failure he tried to lay out a portable garden,
enlisting the aid of "Chips" the carpenter in the manufacture of a
number of boxes, in which he placed earth and his new seedlings. This
attempt, however, failed even more disastrously than the first, the
O.C. having made a most unpleasant fuss on the discovery of two large
boxes of mustard and cress "cluttering up," as he called it, the
gun-mountings on one of the armored cars, and, when the section moved
suddenly in the dead of night, refusing point-blank to allow any
available space to be loaded up with Mary's budding garden. Mary's
plaintive inquiry as to what he was to do with the boxes was met by the
brutal order to "chuck the lot overboard," and the counter-inquiry as
to whether he thought this show was a perambulating botanical gardens.

So Mary lost his second garden complete, even unto the box of spring
onions which were the apple of his gardening eye. But he brisked up
when the new position was established and he learned through the
officer's servant that the selected spot was considered an excellent
one, and offered every prospect of being held by the section for a
considerable time. He selected a favorable spot and proceeded once more
to lay out a garden and to plant out a new lot of vegetables.

The section's new position was only some fifteen hundred yards from the
forward trench; but, being at the bottom of a gently sloping ridge
which ran between the position and the German lines, it was covered
from all except air observation. The two armored cars, containing guns,
were hidden away amongst the shattered ruins of a little hamlet; their
armor-plated bodies, already rendered as inconspicuous as possible by
erratic daubs of bright colors laid on after the most approved Futurist
style, were further hidden by untidy wisps of straw, a few casual
beams, and any other of the broken rubbish which had once been a
village. The men had their quarters in the cellars of one of the broken
houses, and the two officers inhabited the corner of a house with a
more or less remaining roof.

Mary's garden was in a sunny corner of what had been in happier days
the back garden of one of the cottages. The selection, as it turned
out, was not altogether a happy one, because the garden, when abandoned
by its former owner, had run to seed most liberally, and the whole of
its area appeared to be impregnated with a variety of those seeds which
give the most trouble to the new possessor of an old garden. Anyone
with the real gardening instinct appears to have no difficulty in
distinguishing between weeds and otherwise, even on their first
appearance in shape of a microscopic green shoot; but flowers are not
weeds, and Mary had a good deal of trouble to distinguish between the
self-planted growths of nasturtiums, foxgloves, marigolds,
forget-me-nots, and other flowers, and the more prosaic but useful
carrots and spring onions which Mary had introduced. Probably a good
many onions suffered the penalty of bad company, and were sacrificed in
the belief that they were flowers; but on the whole the new garden did
well, and began to show the trim rows of green shoots which afford such
joy to the gardening soul. The shoots grew rapidly, and as time passed
uneventfully and the section remained unmoved, the garden flourished
and the vegetables drew near to the day when they would be fit for
consumption.

Mary gloated over that garden; he went to a world of trouble with it,
he bent over it and weeded it for hours on end; he watered it
religiously every night, he even erected miniature forcing frames over
some of the vegetable rows, ransacking the remains of the broken-down
hamlet for squares of glass or for any pieces large enough for his
purpose. He built these cunningly with frameworks of wood and untwisted
strands of barbed wire, and there is no doubt they helped the growth of
his garden immensely.

Although they have not been torched upon, it must not be supposed that
Mary had no other duties. Despite our frequently announced "Supremacy
of the Air," the anti-aircraft guns were in action rather frequently.
The German aeroplanes in this part of the line appeared to ignore the
repeated assurances in our Press that the German 'plane invariably
makes off on the appearance of a British one; and although it is true
that in almost every case the German was "turned back," he very
frequently postponed the turning until he had sailed up and down the
line a few times and seen, it may be supposed, all that there was to
see.

At such times--and they happened as a rule at least once a day and
occasionally two, three, or four times a day--Mary had to run from his
gardening and help man the guns.

In the course of a month the section shot away many thousands of
shells, and, it is to be hoped, severely frightened many German pilots,
although at that time they could only claim to have brought down one
'plane, and that in a descent so far behind the German lines that its
fate was uncertain.

It must be admitted that the gunners on the whole made excellent
shooting, and if they did not destroy their target, or even make him
turn back, they fulfilled the almost equally useful object of making
him keep so high that he could do little useful observing. But the
short periods of time spent by the section in shooting were no more
than enough to add a pleasant flavor of sport to life, and on the
whole, since the weather was good and the German gunnery was not--or at
least not good enough to be troublesome to the section--life during
that month moved very pleasantly.

But at last there came a day when it looked as if some of the
inconveniences of war were due to arrive. The German aeroplane appeared
as usual one morning just after the section had completed breakfast.
The methodical regularity of hours kept by the German pilots added
considerably to the comfort and convenience of the section by allowing
them to time their hours of sleep, their meals, or an afternoon run by
the O.C. on the motor into the near-by town, so as to fit in nicely
with the duty of anti-aircraft guns.

On this morning at the usual hour the aeroplane appeared, and the
gunners, who were waiting in handy proximity to the cars, jumped to
their stations. The muzzles of the two-pounder pom-poms moved slowly
after their target, and when the range-indicator told that it was
within reach of their shells the first gun opened with a trial beltful.
"Bang--bang--bang--bang!" it shouted, a string of shells singing
and sighing on their way into silence. In a few seconds,
"Puff--puff--puff--puff!" four pretty little white balls broke out and
floated solid against the sky. They appeared well below their target,
and both the muzzles tilted a little and barked off another flight of
shells. This time they appeared to burst in beautiful proximity to the
racing aeroplane, and immediately the two-pounders opened a steady and
accurate bombardment. The shells were evidently dangerously close to
the 'plane, for it tilted sharply and commenced to climb steadily; but
it still held on its way over the British lines, and the course it was
taking it was evident would bring it almost directly over the Blue
Marines and their guns. The pom-poms continued their steady yap-yap,
jerking and springing between each, round, like eager terriers jumping
the length of their chain, recoiling and jumping, and yelping at every
jump. But although the shells were dead in line the range was too
great, and the guns slowed down their rate of fire, merely rapping off
an occasional few rounds to keep the observer at a respectful distance,
without an unnecessary waste of ammunition.

Arrived above them, the aeroplane banked steeply and swung round in a
complete circle.

"Dash his impudence," growled the captain. "Slap at him again, just for
luck." The only effect the resulting slap at him had, however, was to
show the 'plane pilot that he was well out of range and to bring him
spiraling steeply down a good thousand feet. This brought him within
reach of the shells again, and both guns opened rapidly, dotting the
sky thickly with beautiful white puffs of smoke, through which the
enemy sailed swiftly. Then suddenly another shape and color of smoke
appeared beneath him, and a red light burst from it flaring and
floating slowly downwards. Another followed, and then another, and the
'plane straightened out its course, swerved, and flashed swiftly off
down-wind, pursued to the limit of their range by the raving pom-poms.
"Which it seems to me," said the Blue Marine sergeant reflectively,
"that our Tauby had us spotted and was signaling his guns to call and
leave a card on us."

That afternoon showed some proof of the correctness of the sergeant's
supposition; a heavy shell soared over and dropped with a crash in an
open field some two hundred yards beyond the outermost house of the
hamlet. In five minutes another followed, and in the same field blew
out a hole about twenty yards from the first. A third made another hole
another twenty yards off, and a fourth again at the same interval.

When the performance ceased, the captain and his lieutenant held a
conference over the matter. "It looks as if we'd have to shift," said
the captain. "That fellow has got us marked down right enough."

"If he doesn't come any nearer," said the lieutenant, "we're all right.
We won't need to take cover when the shelling starts, and even if the
guns are shooting when the German is shelling, the armor-plate will
easily stand off splinters from that distance."

"Yes," said the captain. "But do you suppose our friend the Flighty Hun
won't have a peep at us to-morrow morning to see where those shells
landed? If he does, or if he takes a photograph, those holes will show
up like a chalk-mark on a blackboard; then he has only to tell his gun
to step this way a couple of hundred yards and we get it in the neck.
I'm inclined to think we'd better up anchor and away."

"We're pretty comfortable here, you know," urged the lieutenant, "and
it's a pity to get out. It might be that those shots were blind chance.
I vote for waiting another day, anyhow, and seeing what happens. At the
worst we can pack up and stand by with steam up; then if the shells
pitch too near we can slip the cable and run for it"

"Right-oh!" said the captain.

Next morning the enemy aeroplane appeared again at its appointed hour
and sailed overhead, leaving behind it a long wake of smoke-puffs; and
at the same hour in the afternoon as the previous shelling the German
gun opened fire, dropping its first shell neatly fifty yards further
from the shell-holes of the day before. The aeroplane, of course, had
reported, or its photograph had shown, the previous day's shells to
have dropped apparently fifty yards to the left of the hamlet. The gun
accordingly corrected its aim and opened fire on a spot fifty yards
more to the right. For hours it bombarded that suffering field
energetically, and at the end of that time, when they were satisfied
the shelling was over, the Blue Marines climbed from their cellar. Next
morning the aeroplane appeared again, and the Blue Marines allowed it
this time to approach unattacked. Convinced probably by this and the
appearance of the numerous shell-pits scattered round the gun position,
the aeroplane swooped lower to verify its observations. Unfortunately
another anti-aircraft gun a mile further along the line thought this
too good an opportunity to miss, and opened rapid fire. The 'plane
leaped upward and away, and the Blue Marines sped on its way with a
stream of following shells.

"If the Huns' minds work on the fixed and appointed path, one would
expect the same old field will get a strafing this afternoon," said the
captain afterwards. "The airman will have seen the village knocked
about, and if he knew that those last shells came from here he'll just
conclude that yesterday's shooting missed us, and the gunners will have
another whale at us this afternoon."

He was right; the gun had "another whale" at them, and again dug many
holes in the old field.

But next morning the Germans played a new and disconcerting game. The
aeroplane hovered high above and dropped a light, and a minute later
the Blue Marines heard a shrill whistle, that grew and changed to a
whoop, and ended with the same old crash in the same old field.

"Now," said the captain. "Stand by for trouble. That brute is spotting
for his gun."

The aeroplane dropped a light, turned, and circled round to the left.
Five minutes later another shell screamed over, and this time fell
crashing into the hamlet. The hit was palpable and unmistakable; a huge
dense cloud of smoke and mortar-, lime-, and red brick-dust leapt and
billowed and hung heavily over the village.

"This," said the captain rapidly, "is where we do the rabbit act. Get
to cover, all of you, and lie low."

They did the rabbit act, scuttling amongst the broken houses to the
shelter of their cellar and diving hastily into it. Another shell
arrived, shrieking wrathfully, smashed into another broken house, and
scattered its ruins in a whirlwind of flying fragments.

Now Mary, of course, was in the cellar with the rest, and Mary's garden
was in full view from the cellar entrance, and twenty or twenty-five
yards from it. The rest of the party were surprised to see Mary, as the
loud clatter of falling stones subsided, leap for the cellar steps, run
up them, and disappear out into the open. He was back in a couple of
minutes. "I just wondered," he said breathlessly, "if those blighters
had done any damage to my vegetables." When another shell came he