Present was the chief instructor, a Scottish subaltern with blue eyes, a pleasant smile, and a Cock-o’-the-North spirit.  He might have been twenty years old, though he did not look it.  On his breast was the purple and white ribbon of the new order of the Military Cross, which you get for doing something in this war which would have won you a Victoria Cross in one of the other wars.

Also present was the assistant instructor, a sergeant of regulars—­and very much of a regular—­who had three ribbons which he had won in previous campaigns.  He, too, had blue eyes, bland blue eyes.  These two understood each other.

“If you don’t drop it, why, it’s all right!” said the sergeant.  “Of course,
if you do------”

I did not drop it.

“And when you throw it, sir, you must look out and not hit the man behind you and knock the bomb out of your hand.  That has happened before to an absent-minded fellow who was about to toss one at the Boches, and it doesn’t do to be absent-minded when you throw bombs.”

“They say that you sometimes pick up the German bombs and chuck them back before they explode,” I suggested.

“Yes, sir, I’ve read things like that in some of the accounts of the reporters who write from Somewhere in France.  You don’t happen to know where that is, sir?  All I can say is that if you are going to do it you must be quick about it.  I shouldn’t advise delaying decision, sir, or perhaps when you reached down to pick it up, neither your hand nor the bomb would be there.  They’d have gone off together, sir.”

“Have you ever been hurt in your handling of bombs?” I asked.

Surprise in the bland blue eyes.  “Oh, no, sir!  Bombs are well behaved if you treat them right.  It’s all in being thoughtful and considerate of them!” Meanwhile, he was jerking at some kind of a patent fuse set in a shell of high explosive.  “This is a poor kind, sir.  It’s been discarded, but I thought that you might like to see it.  Never did like it.  Always making trouble!”

More distance between the audience and the performer.  “Now I’ve got it, sir—­get down, sir!” The audience carried out instructions to the letter, as army regulations require.  It got behind the protection of one of the practice-trench traverses.  He threw the discard behind another wall of earth.  There was a sharp report, a burst of smoke, and some fragments of earth were tossed into the air.

In a small affair of two hundred yards of trench a week before, it was estimated that the British and the Germans together threw about five thousand bombs in this fashion.  It was enough to sadden any Minister of Munitions.  However, the British kept the trench.

“Do the men like to become bombers?” I asked the subaltern.

“I should say so!  It puts them up in front.  It gives them a chance to throw something, and they don’t get much cricket in France, you see.  We had a pupil here last week who broke the throwing record for distance.  He was as pleased as Punch with himself.  A first-class bombing detachment has a lot of pride of corps.”