A change of angle was momentarily expected from the observer; we had been looking for it for some minutes, and the Major was beginning to rave and rant, very much like a theater manager when the star has not yet put in her appearance and the impatient audience on the outside are giving vent to catcalls.  He could stand it no longer and ran as fast as his legs would carry him over to the telephonist’s hut; there he found Graham crouching alongside of his telephone in the folds of a blanket over his head and face.  It was the usual field telephone that we used, in conjunction with a telegraph buzzer, and Graham was endeavoring to deliver his messages and fight off the bees at the same time, while bringing to his aid the smoke of a fag that he was endeavoring to puff into the faces of his antagonists in the hope that it would help some.

The Major bellowed, “You damned jackass! take off that blanket.  What do you mean?” Graham threw off the blanket and started working his buzzer, but the bees had as little regard for the rank of the Major as they did for that of Sergeant Graham, and three or four of them kept pinging away at him, but as long as the Major was there his splendid discipline enabled him to do his work.  He got into communication at once with the trenches, gave us our new targets and we kept on with our work until darkness prevented further registering that night, although the twilight still prevailed.

“Stand down!” came the order.  “Clean up guns and lay on S.O.S. lines for the night,” meaning to load the gun with a fuse shell timed for a certain range, or to burst on percussion, just as the target requires, safety catch down, sight set, range on range drum and the gun laid on a predetermined point to be covered, in both cases being the front line trench, although it might be a machine-gun emplacement, barbed-wire, bombing post, crossroads or observation station.  For a front-line trench and an attack started by the enemy, the S.O.S. signal is passed from the trench, either through the telephonist in the trenches, or by means of colored star shells.  Immediately upon receipt of this signal by our S.O.S. sentry or the telephonist at the battery, we get the order “S.O.S. stand to the battery,” and in the space of four seconds from the time we receive that order, our first shell must be exploded in the German lines under pain of the severest penalty.  If a man were taking a wash, he would have to jump out of the water and get to the guns as quickly as God and nature would permit him.

Before retiring for our billets, Mac and I decided that we might as well get some more honey, as we felt that the bees had done about all that they could to us and we were deserving of a little further reward for what we had endured, and arming ourselves with smoke helmets, we made a further sortie on the camp of our winged enemies.  As fast as if I were ramming home a shell, I lifted off the hive while Mac pulled out a couple of combs swarming with bees.  We