’Well, he asked us.  That was when we found the Territorial battalion undressin’ in slow time.  It lay on the left flank o’ the Blue Army, and it cackled as it lay, too.  But it gave us our position as regards the respective armies.  We wandered a little more, and at 11.7 P.M., not having had a road under us for twenty minutes, we scaled the heights of something or other—­which are about six hundred feet high.  Here we ’alted to tighten the lashings of the superstructure, and we smelt leather and horses three counties deep all round.  We was, as you might say, in the thick of it.’

’"Ah!” says my Mr. Morshed.  “My ’orizon has indeed broadened.  What a little thing is an uncle, Mr. Pyecroft, in the presence o’ these glitterin’ constellations!  Simply ludicrous!” he says, “to waste a rocking-horse on an individual.  We must socialise it.  But we must get their ’eads up first.  Touch off one rocket, if you please.”

’I touched off a green three-pounder which rose several thousand metres, and burst into gorgeous stars.  “Reproduce the manoeuvre,” he says, “at the other end o’ this ridge—­if it don’t end in another cliff.”  So we steamed down the ridge a mile and a half east, and then I let Jules touch off a pink rocket, or he’d ha’ kissed me.  That was his only way to express his emotions, so to speak.  Their heads come up then all around us to the extent o’ thousands.  We hears bugles like cocks crowing below, and on the top of it a most impressive sound which I’d never enjoyed before because ’itherto I’d always been an inteegral part of it, so to say—­the noise of ‘ole armies gettin’ under arms.  They must ’ave anticipated a night attack, I imagine.  Most impressive.  Then we ’eard a threshin’-machine.  “Tutt!  Tutt!  This is childish!” says Lootenant Morshed.  “We can’t wait till they’ve finished cutting chaff for their horses.  We must make ’em understand we’re not to be trifled with.  Expedite ’em with another rocket, Mr. Pyecroft.”

’"It’s barely possible, sir,” I remarks, “that that’s a searchlight churnin’ up,” and by the time we backed into a providential chalk cutting (which was where our first tyre went pungo) she broke out to the northward, and began searching the ridge.  A smart bit o’ work.’

‘’Twasn’t a puncture.  The inner tube had nipped because we skidded so,’ Leggatt interrupted.

‘While your Mr. Leggatt was effectin’ repairs, another searchlight broke out to the southward, and the two of ’em swept our ridge on both sides.  Right at the west end of it they showed us the ground rising into a hill, so to speak, crowned with what looked like a little fort.  Morshed saw it before the beams shut off.  “That’s the key of the position!” he says.  “Occupy it at all hazards.”