Because the mess had guests there was a special dish in our honor.  One of the men had gone over—­at considerable risk of his life, as I learned later—­to the heap of stones and dust that had once been the village of Givenchy.  There he had found a lot of gooseberries.  The French call them grossets, as we in Scotland do, too—­although the pronunciation of the word is different in the two languages, of course.  There had been gardens around the houses of Givenchy once, before the place had been made into a desert of rubble and brickdust.  And, somehow, life had survived in those bruised and battered gardens, and the delicious mess of gooseberries that we had for dessert stood as proof thereof.

The meal was seasoned by good talk.  I love to hear the young British officers talk.  It is a liberal education.  They have grown so wise, those boys!  Those of them who come back when the war is over will have the world at their feet, indeed.  Nothing will be able to stop them or to check them in their rise.  They have learned every great lesson that a man must learn if he is to succeed in the affairs of life.  Self control is theirs, and an infinite patience, and a dogged determination that refuses to admit that there are any things that a man cannot do if he only makes up his mind that he must and will do them.  For the British army has accomplished the impossible, time after time; it has done things that men knew could not be done.

And so we sat and talked, as we smoked, after the meal, until the major rose, at last, and invited me to walk around the battery again with him.  I could ask questions now, having seen the men at work, and he explained many things I wanted to know—­and which Fritz would like to know, too, to this day!  But above all I was fascinated by the work of the gunners.  I kept trying, in my mind’s eye, to follow the course of the shells that were dispatched so calmly upon their errands of destruction.  My imagination played with the thought of what they were doing at the other end of their swift voyage through the air.  I pictured the havoc that must be wrought when one made a clean hit.

And, suddenly, I was swept by that same almost irresistible desire to be fighting myself that had come over me when I had seen the other battery.  If I could only play my part!  If I could fire even a single shot—­if I, with my own hands, could do that much against those who had killed my boy!  And then, incredulously, I heard the words in my ear.  It was the major.

“Would you like to try a shot, Harry?” he asked me.

Would I?  I stared at him.  I couldn’t believe my ears.  It was as if he had read my thoughts.  I gasped out some sort of an affirmative.  My blood was boiling at the very thought, and the sweat started from my pores.

“All right—­nothing easier!” said the major, smiling.  “I had an idea you were wanting to take a hand, Harry.”

He led me toward one of the guns, where the sweating crew was especially active, as it seemed to me.  They grinned at me as they saw me coming.