it comes nearer, and its dying away when it has gone over, that make
it reminiscent of the hyena's method of diction. If it is not going
over then it has something quite different to say. It begins the same
as the other, it comes up, talking of the back areas with the same
long whine as the other. I have heard old hands say ``That one is
going well over.'' ``Whee-oo,'' says the shell; but just where the
``oo'' should be long drawn out and turn into the hyena's final
syllable, it says something quite different. ``Zarp,'' it says. That
is bad. Those are the shells that are looking for you.

And then of course there is the whizz-bang coming from close, along
his flat trajectory: he has little to say, but comes like a sudden
wind, and all that he has to do is done and over at once.

And then there is the gas shell, who goes over gurgling gluttonously,
probably in big herds, putting down a barrage. It is the liquid inside
that gurgles before it is turned to gas by the mild explosion; that is
the explanation of it; yet that does not prevent one picturing a tribe
of cannibals who have winded some nice juicy men and are smacking
their chops and dribbling in anticipation.

And a wonderful thing to see, even in those wonderful nights, is our
thermite bursting over the heads of the Germans. The shell breaks into
a shower of golden rain; one cannot judge easily at night how high
from the ground it breaks, but about as high as the tops of trees seen
at a hundred yards. It spreads out evenly all round and rains down
slowly; it is a bad shower to be out in, and for a long time after it
has fallen, the sodden grass of winter, and the mud and old bones
beneath it, burn quietly in a circle. On such a night as this, and in
such showers, the flying pigs will go over, which take two men to