Mufti

the hand, he pulled out a handkerchief of striking design and carefully adjusted it over his face. Then, with his hands dug deep in his pockets to remove even a square inch of skin from

th to battle with the Huns. There were no guns belching forth: the grim Panoply of War, whatever it may mean, was conspicuous by its absence. Only a very fat quartermaster-sergeant lay asleep in the sun and snored, while an ancient and dissolute ol

s attached stretched up taut from some point near the farmhouse behind. A triangular flag, like a burgee, flew straight out i

ouses. In certain places there ran long rows of poles with strips of brown material stretched between them, which a spectator would r

and spires of a great building; at the far end, on a hill separated-almost isolated-from the main ridge, a line of stumps, gaunt tooth-pick stumps standing stiffly in a row. There was no sign of life on the hills, no

the yellow pall rolled down the side twisting and turning, drifting into the air and eddying over the dark, grim slope. Gradually it blotted out

the performance with perfunctory interest, while the purple bulldog still ro

a tin structure in one corner of the field with a bundle of letters in his ha

minton racket and a shuttlecock. "On the bulldog-one round r

everely, "in that you did spread alarm and despondency amongst the troops

rishment. Does tea await me, and if not-why not?" He took his mail and glanced through it.

b. Shortly afterwards a noise of ripping canvas announced that it had acted as

" Vane's voice came dimly from the gro

and charming?" demande

e got bones on you like the

?" pursued the sam

Vane. "A walking nigh

ll-you ma

r from the body of an officer known to all and sundry as the Tan

l-pervading khaki it might have been a scene at home before the war. The yellow fog had cleared away from Kemmel, and over the flat country the heat haze rose, shimmering and dancing in the after

ir was filled with the thumping of Archi

is," cried the Tank

towards the next. From the first sausage two black streaks shot out, to steady after a hundred feet or so, and float down, supported by their white parachutes. But the balloon itself was finished. From one end there glowed for

ull blast, but the pilot continued on his course. Tracer bullets shot up like lines of light, but so far he had come through untouched. From the balloo

ane, two black spots, which did not steady after a hundred feet. They crashed fifty yards from the tin hut, and almost before they reached the ground the officers were on the spot. A little distance away the aeroplane was blazing, and they could feel the heat as they bent over the pilot and his observer. They were both dead, and the pilot was unrecognisable; a bu

close by two excited men from different units argued rauco

in the middle," cried one claimant. "It were old Ginger's

it was almost a grin o

of course, but. . . .

down and cove

med guard round the plane at once till the Flying Corps a

ball enthusiasts their game. Twenty-five Lewis guns and twelve Vickers sections were all composing reports

hort minutes was that by the ruins of a deck chair two German ai