Do you observe that young officer sitting on a ration-box at his dug-out door, with his head tied up in a bandage?  That is Second Lieutenant Lochgair, whom I hope to make better known to you in time.  He is a chieftain of high renown in his own inaccessible but extensive fastness; but out here, where every man stands on his own legs, and not his grandfather’s, he is known simply as “Othello.”  This is due to the fact that Major Kemp once likened him to the earnest young actor of tradition, who blacked himself all over to ensure proficiency in the playing of that part.  For he is above all things an enthusiast in his profession.  Last night he volunteered to go out and “listen” for a suspected mine some fifty yards from the German trenches.  He set out as soon as darkness fell, taking with him a biscuit-tin full of water.  A circular from Headquarters—­one of those circulars which no one but Othello would have treated with proper reverence—­had suggested this device.  The idea was that, since liquids convey sound better than air, the listener should place his tin of water on the ground, lie down beside it, immerse one ear therein, and so draw secrets from the earth.  Othello failed to locate the mine, but kept his head in the biscuit-tin long enough to contract a severe attack of earache.

But he is not discouraged.  At present he is meditating a design for painting himself grass-green and climbing a tree—­thence to take a comprehensive and unobserved survey of the enemy’s dispositions.  He will do it, too, if he gets a chance!

The machine-gunners, also, contrive to chase monotony by methods of their own.  Listen to Ayling, concocting his diurnal scheme of frightfulness with a colleague.  Unrolled upon his knee is a large-scale map.

“I think we might touch up those cross-roads to-night,” he says, laying the point of his dividers upon a spot situated some hundreds of yards in rear of the German trenches.

“I expect they’ll have lots of transport there about ration-time—­eh?”

“Sound scheme,” assents his coadjutor, a bloodthirsty stripling named Ainslie.  “Got the bearings?”

“Hand me that protractor.  Seventy-one, nineteen, true.  That comes to”—­Ayling performs a mental calculation—­“almost exactly eighty-five, magnetic.  We’ll go out about nine, with two guns, to the corner of this dry ditch here—­the range is two thousand five hundred, exactly”—­

“Our lightning calculator!” murmurs his admiring colleague.  “No elastic up the sleeve, or anything!  All done by simple ledger-de-mang?  Proceed!”

—­“And loose off a belt or two.  What say?”

“Application forwarded, and strongly recommended,” announced Ainslie.  He examined the map.  “Cross-roads—­eh?  That means at least one estaminet.  One estaminet, with Bosches inside, complete!  Think of our little bullets all popping in through the open door, five hundred a minute!  Think of the rush to crawl under the counter!  It might be a Headquarters?  We might get Von Kluck or Rupy of Bavaria, splitting a half litre together.  We shall earn Military Crosses over this, my boy,” concluded the imaginative youth.  “Wow, wow!”