"Oh, bust the scrap," said the reader. "I'm sick of scraps and Huns. Do dry up and let me read," and he buried himself again in the fiction that to him at least was stranger than the naked truth that rioted about his unheeding ears.
The Major's end of the talk consisted at first of "Yes ... yes ... yes ... oh, yes," and then, more intelligibly, "Yes, pretty good scrap evidently.... No, they're all back, thanks.... Thanks, I'm glad you think—what?... Are you sure?... Quite sure? Good. There's been rather an argument.... Six? Quite certain?... Thanks very much.... I suppose you'll send a report confirming.... Right. Thanks.... Good-bye."
He put the receiver down on the stand and turned to Blanky with a smile twitching his lips. "Our Archies," he explained, "rang up to tell me they'd watched the whole show——" "Pretty sight, too," growled Blanky. The Major went on: "and to congratulate the Squadron on a first-class fight. And they positively confirm six crashes, Blanky; saw them hit the ground and smash. Some others seen low down out of control, and could hardly recover, but weren't seen actually to crash. So we only get six—and as the others only claim five, you must have got yours after all."
"Course he got it," struck in Blanky's observer; "only I knew he'd argue me down if I——"
"Oh, shut up," said Blanky. "How could you see? You were looking over the tail, anyway."
"Well, I knew I got mine," said Dicky.
"Me, too" ... "And I was sure——" ... "And I saw mine."
"For the love of Christmas, dry up," stormed Blanky. "If you could only fly as well as you can talk, you might make a half-baked blistering Flight. As it is you're more like a fat-headed flock o' incarnadined crows split-armin' over a furrow in a ploughed field. Of all the dazzling dud formations I ever saw——"
"Never mind, Blanky," said the Major. "You got six confirmed crashes amongst you, so it wasn't too dud a show."
"I don't care," said Blanky, tramping to the door and jerking it open. "I don't care a tuppenny tinker's dash what Huns we got." He swung through, and, turning in the doorway with his hand on the knob, shouted back with all the emphasis of last-word finality: "I tell you it was a ROTTEN formation, anyway."