Exactly at 2 o’clock that morning we started sending our messages to Fritzie, and inside of a minute—­Kr-kr-kr-p!  Kr-kr-kr-p!  Kr-kr-kr-p!  Kr-kr-kr-p!  And his shells were flying all around us.  The cookhouse was only about 20 yards off and I wondered if Scotty would now loosen up a bit, and I stepped over leaving Lawrence in charge of the gun.  The cook had crawled under his bunk, which was merely a slight wire mattress raised a couple of feet off the floor.  There was a dixie of hot tea standing near and I started to help myself to a drink.  He saw what I was doing and with chattering teeth told me he would report me in the morning.  He had scarcely spoken when a shell tore through the cookhouse, going clean through the wall over his bed, and as the roar of it passed by, I heard Scotty again offering up supplications in a manner that would arouse the admiration of the most earnest camp-meeting devotee.  The shells were commencing to pop all around and I knew instantly that Fritz had located the cookhouse instead of the battery, and I roared to Scotty to come out, but he wouldn’t budge.  I reached under and grabbed him by the leg, dragging him to the door and leading him by the hand, for he was shaking like a leaf, made my way to the battery.  By that time Fritz had got a better line on the guns and it was getting so hot that we got orders to retire to our dugouts.  I pushed the cook ahead of me and when we got to the path leading to our quarters, about 200 yards off, no sprinter ever lived that could equal the pace of the bow-legged chef.  I doubt if a moving picture machine could have caught the flash of his legs.

The following day we got the welcome order of billets.  When there the O.C. made an announcement that he would give a prize of 20 francs to the driver of the best pair of mules on inspection day, which was two weeks hence.  This was done for the purpose of encouraging the well-being of the animals,—­a most important factor in our own well-being.  Scotty’s eye to thrift ever open, he entered into an engagement with one of the drivers that he would feed his mules potato peelings if he would split fifty-fifty with him on the prize.  The driver agreed and a few days later he and his helper appeared at the door of the cookhouse with one of the mules to get his feed.  In order to prevent spilling the peelings at the entrance to the cookhouse, he backed the mule up against the door.  In France, as is well known, every farmhouse has a cesspool in which all manner of refuse is distilled by means of a pump and straw, and used to fertilize the soil.  These pools are all the way from 8 to 10 feet deep.  Immediately in front of the cookhouse and the mule was one of these cesspools, our billets here being on a farm.  It happened that when Scotty was peeling his potatoes that day, he had thrown them so close to the fire that they got thoroughly heated.  He hastily gathered them up and threw them in a pan which he handed to Tompkins, the man who had charge of the mules and