The captain of this company—­a Hieland company, it was, though not of John’s regiment—­had spent must of his time in London before the war, and belonged to several clubs, which, in those days, employed many Germans as servants and waiters.  He was a big man, and he had a deep, bass voice, so that he roared like the bull of Bashan when he had a mind to raise it for all to hear.

One day things were dull in his sector.  The front line trench was not far from that of the Germans, but there was no activity beyond that of the snipers, and the Germans were being so cautious that ours were getting mighty few shots.  The captain was bored, and so were the men.

“How would you like a pot shot, lads?” he asked.

“Fine!” came the answer.  “Fine, sir!”

“Very well,” said the captain.  “Get ready with your rifles, and keep your eyes on you trench.”

It was not more than thirty yards away—­pointblank range.  The captain waited until they were ready.  And then his voice rang out in its loudest, most commanding roar.

“Waiter!” he shouted.

Forty helmets popped up over the German parapet, and a storm of bullets swept them away!

CHAPTER XVII

It was getting late—­for men who had had so early a breakfast as we had had to make to get started in good time.  And just as I was beginning to feel hungry—­odd, it seemed to me, that such a thing as lunch should stay in my mind in such surroundings and when so many vastly more important things were afoot!—­the major looked at his wrist watch.

“By Jove!” he said, “Lunch time!  Gentlemen—­you’ll accept such hospitality as we can offer you at our officer’s mess?”

There wasn’t any question about acceptance!  We all said we were delighted, and we meant it.  I looked around for a hut or some such place, or even for a tent, and, seeing nothing of the sort, wondered where we might be going to eat.  I soon found out.  The major led the way underground, into a dugout.  This was the mess.  It was hard by the guns, and in a hole that had been dug out, quit literally.  Here there was a certain degree of safety.  In these dugouts every phase of the battery’s life except the actual serving of the guns went on.  Officers and men alike ate and slept in them.

They were much snugger within than you might fancy.  A lot of the men had given homelike touches to their habitations.  Pictures cut from the illustrated papers at home, which are such prime favorites with all the Tommies made up a large part of the decorative scheme.  Pictures of actresses predominated; the Tommies didn’t go in for war pictures.  Indeed, there is little disposition to hammer the war home at you in a dugout.  The men don’t talk about it or think about, save as they must; you hear less talk about the war along the front than you do at home.  I heard a story at Vimy Ridge of a Tommy who had come back to the trenches after seeing Blighty for the first time in months.