“P 7—­a most unhealthy spot.  Minnie pushes it over about two every morning.  The result is that we have to mount guard over the breach all day.  We build everything up again at night, and Minnie sits there as good as gold, and never dreams of interfering.  You can almost hear her cooing over us.  Then, as I say, at two o’clock, just as the working party comes in and gets under cover, she lets slip one of her disgusting bombs, and undoes the work of about four hours.  It was a joke at first, but we are getting fed up now.  That’s the worst of the Bosche.  He starts by being playful; but if not suppressed at once, he gets rough; and that, of course, spoils all the harmony of the proceedings.  So I cordially commend your idea of the one-fifty-five turn, sir.”

“I’ll see what can be done,” says the major.  “I think the best plan would be a couple of hours’ solid frightfulness, from every battery we can switch on.  To-morrow afternoon, perhaps, but I’ll let you know.  You’ll have to clear out of this bit of trench altogether, as we shall shoot pretty low.  So long!”

III

It is six o’clock next evening, and peace reigns over our trench.  This is the hour at which one usually shells aeroplanes—­or rather, at which the Germans shell ours, for their own seldom venture out in broad daylight.  But this evening, although two or three are up in the blue, buzzing inquisitively over the enemy’s lines, their attendant escort of white shrapnel puffs is entirely lacking.  Far away behind the German lines a house is burning fiercely.

“The Hun is a bit piano to-night,” observes Captain Blaikie, attacking his tea.

“The Hun has been rather firmly handled this afternoon,” replies Captain Wagstaffe.  “I think he has had an eye-opener.  There are no flies on our Divisional Artillery.”

Bobby Little heaved a contented sigh.  For two hours that afternoon he had sat, half-deafened, while six-inch shells skimmed the parapet in both directions, a few feet above his head.  The Gunner major had been as good as his word.  Punctually at one-fifty-five “Minnie’s” two o’clock turn had been anticipated by a round of high-explosive shells directed into her suspected place of residence.  What the actual result had been nobody knew, but Minnie had made no attempt to raise her voice since.  Thereafter the German front-line trenches had been “plastered” from end to end, while the trenches farther back were attended to with methodical thoroughness.  The German guns had replied vigorously, but directing only a passing fire at the trenches, had devoted their efforts chiefly to the silencing of the British artillery.  In this enterprise they had been remarkably unsuccessful.

“Any casualties?” asked Blaikie.

“None here,” replied Wagstaffe.  “There may be some back in the support trenches.”

“We might telephone and inquire.”

“No good at present.  The wires are all cut to pieces.  The signallers are repairing them now.”