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-master explaining that his clown has got the measles:
"Nottin, see you? _Pas d'esprit, l'animal!_"

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE RUMOURISTS.