Rat-tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat! go the Huns.  But Eric is faster.  Are they all Huns, though?  Shall I fire?  Yes.  No.  They daren’t come down low over our lines.  We are safe.  Yes, look, they were all Huns.  They hang about far up aloft.  The Hun usually hunts in threes.  Why, oh why, didn’t I fire?  Well, it can’t be helped now.  Eric looks round.  We both laugh.  “Why didn’t you fire?” he shouts.  I can’t hear what he says, but I know from the shape of his mouth that’s what he is saying.  I just smile and shake my head.  Can’t explain now.

Where on earth did they come from?  Coasting about very high up, I suppose, and suddenly swooped down at us.

However, the drawing is done.  So that’s that.  Home, John!

One little bullet-hole through one of the wings, no more.  Indifferent shooting, my friend Fritz.  However, I can’t talk, because I never fired at all!

February 16.

I’ve never thanked you for the chocolates which arrived two days ago.  But they arrived during one of the avalanches of work, and were all eaten within half an hour or so; not by me, but by various R.F.C. men who are always coming in and out of my office for “the latest.”

[Sidenote:  TOLL OF WAR]

To-day all frosty and sunny.  Think of going on to the terrace at home before breakfast and seeing some jolly little new flower out, with the Golden Valley behind, all grey-blue and woody.

It’s all working well here, and, being the representative of the corps, I have a certain status which is pleasant.  They think that I may or may not give them a good character to the Powers that be.  Quite fun.

They are awfully nice fellows.  The only two I knew before were Eric and Bill Vivian.  Bill I have known for a very long time, and during the war I’ve seen a great deal of him, and was very fond of him.  He was brought down by Archie yesterday in our lines.  Burnt to death.  Dead when they reached him.  Yesterday night at mess we were all quite gay.  Only one man showed that his heart was as heavy as lead.  And it seemed bad form.  Heaviness of heart is bad form.  No gentleman should have a heavy heart.  A sign of weakness, of ill breeding.

February 17.

To-day has been one of the jumpy, anxious days again, because something is to happen shortly, and those concerned are ringing up all the time asking me this and that about the Boche trenches, etc.  And they want maps of this and plans of that and t’other.  It’s these times before some event that are so wearing.  The smaller the event, the more wearing very often, because it’s just some one or two officers, perhaps, who are doing the show, and, of course, half their success or failure depends on whether an unhappy intelligence officer can tell them exactly what they are up against, and exactly where it is and so on.  I always go on the principle of assuming the worst.  If I think there may be a minny