answered: "No, sir."

At last we got out into the little path, and had to double along through
the mud. Humphry was last man out, and he saw the one and only shell
the Boches sent over, exploding quite close to the aforementioned
dug-out.

Isn't it funny. The Boches don't apparently know of this dug-out, or of
the cable trenches, or they would, of course, smash it to pieces. And,
for some reason that I haven't yet grasped, they never reply to our guns
immediately. They wait for perhaps ten minutes, and _then_ they don't
always reply to the same spot we spoke from. As, for example, this wood.
Our guns were all in and round about the wood. The Boches apparently
strafed back at an unoffending village on the west side of the hill.

So, with our guns still behaving like things delirious, we eventually
reached the horses. Jezebel was quietly gorging herself with long
luscious grass beside the hedge. She told me she hadn't noticed anything
unusual. Poor Swallow was standing quite still, with his nostrils wide
open, breathing hard and trembling all over. A good many horses were
trembling, but the majority agreed with Jezebel: "It's only some silly
nonsense on the part of those Human Beings again. Don't listen."

Then we saddled up and rode back to a place well behind, where we could
exercise the beasties. They had been given no exercise for three days.
And so home again to this farm. The horses are all in a field surrounded
by trees, and couldn't be seen from above at all. I have seen lots
of other horse-lines of other units, though, much closer to the front
than this is--quite open to view. The fact is, I think, that Hun
aircraft very seldom indeed gets across into our preserves.