Far away, and very near, lie the enemy’s barricades, some running almost up to your own, but quite peaceful and silent, others standing up frowningly hundreds of yards off, monuments erected weeks ago.  These latter are so distant that they are unknown quantities.  Then just as you are about to give it up as a bad job, you see the top of a rifle barrel glistening in the sun.  You ... bang! perilously near your glasses another bullet has struck.  So you pull up your rifle by the strap, open out your loophole a little by removing some of the bricks, and carefully and slowly you send the answering message at the enemy’s head.  If you have great luck a faint groan or a distant shout of pain may reward your efforts; but you can never be quite sure whether you have got home on your rival or not.  Loophole shooting is very tricky, and the very best shots fire by the hour in vain.  I have seen that often....

Yesterday I directly disobeyed orders by opening the ball myself.  I had been posted in the early morning very close to one of the enemy’s banners—­perhaps not more than forty feet away—­and this gaudy flag, defiantly flapping so near the end of my nose, must have incensed me; for almost before I had realised what I was doing I was very slowly and very carefully aiming at the bamboo staff so as to split it in two and bring down the banner with a run.  I fired three shots in ten minutes and missed in an exasperating fashion.  It is the devil’s own job to do really accurate work with an untested government rifle.  But my fourth shot was more successful; it snapped the staff neatly enough, and the banner floated to the ground just outside the barricade.

This Chinese outpost must have been but feebly manned, as, indeed, all the outposts have been since the armistice, for it was fully ten minutes before anything occurred.  Then an arm came suddenly over and pecked vainly at the banner.  I snapped rapidly, missed, and the arm flicked back.  Another five minutes passed, and then a piece of curved bamboo moved over the barricade and hunted about.  It was no use, however, the arm had to come, too.  I waited until the brown hand clasping the bamboo was low and then pumped a quick shot at it.  A yell of pain answered me; the bamboo was dropped, the arm disappeared.  I had drawn blood.

Nothing now occurred for a quarter of an hour, and I heard not a sound.  Then suddenly half a dozen arms clasping bamboos appeared at different points, and as soon as I had fired six heads swooped out and directed this bamboo fishing.  In a trice they had harpooned the flag, and before I could fire again it was back in their camp.  I had been beaten!  Then, as a revenge, I was steadily pelted with lead for more than half an hour and had to lie very low.  They searched for me with their missiles with devilish ingenuity.  This firing became so persistent that one of our patrols at last appeared and crept forward to me from the line of main works behind.  Only by ingenious lying did I escape from being reported....