I have appeared, sometimes, in theaters in which it was pretty difficult to find the audience.  And such audiences have been nearly impossible to trace, later, in the box-office reports.  But that is the first time in my life, and, up to now, the last, that I ever sang to a totally invisible audience!  I did not know then how many men there might have been forty, or four hundred, or four thousand.  And, save for the titters that greeted my encounters with the bats, they were amazingly quiet as they waited for me to sing.

It was just about ten minutes before eleven when I began to sing, and the concert wasn’t over until after midnight.  I was distinctly nervous as I began the verse of my first song.  It was a great relief when there was a round of applause; that helped to place my audience and give me its measure, at once.

But I was almost as disconcerted a bit later as I had been by the first incursion of the bats.  I came to the chorus, and suddenly, out of the darkness, there came a perfect gale of sound.  It was the men taking up the chorus, thundering it out.  They took the song clean away from me—­I could only gasp and listen.  The roar from that unseen chorus almost took my feet from under me, so amazing was it, and so unexpected, somehow, used as I was to having soldiers join in a chorus with me, and disappointed as I should have been had they ever failed to do so.

But after that first song, when I knew what to expect, I soon grew used to the strange surroundings.  The weirdness and the mystery wore off, and I began to enjoy myself tremendously.  The conditions were simply ideal; indeed, they were perfect, for the sentimental songs that soldiers always like best.  Imagine how “Roamin’ in the Gloamin’” went that nicht!

I had meant to sing three or four songs.  But instead I sang nearly every song I knew.  It was one of the longest programmes I gave during the whole tour, and I enjoyed the concert, myself, better than any I had yet given.

My audience was growing all the time, although I did not know that.  The singing brought up crowds from the French village, who gathered in the outskirts of the throng to listen—­and, I make no doubt, to pass amazed comments on these queer English!

At last I was too tired to go on.  And so I bade the lads good-nicht, and they gave me a great cheer, and faded away into the blackness.  And I went inside, rubbing my eyes, and wondering if it was no all a dream!

“It wasn’t Sir Douglas Haig who arrived, was it, Harry?” Godfrey said, slyly.

CHAPTER XXIV

The next morning I was tired, as you may believe.  I ached in every limb when I went to my room that night, but a hot bath and a good sleep did wonders for me.  No bombardment could have kept me awake that nicht!  I would no ha’ cared had the Hun begun shelling Tramecourt itself, so long as he did not shell me clear out of my bed.