"Jolly good reason," Jack replied. "If you take a peep through the hedge there you'll see the trenches—we're as close as we dare go at present."
Reggy looked disappointed. "There isn't even a gun," he complained.
It seemed as if the invisible gunners had heard him, for suddenly the fields round about us sprang to life and belched forth smoke and shells. Some cannon in the dark shade of the bushes were actually so close that we could see the streak of flame from the muzzle light the shadow. The Germans were not slow to retaliate, and in a few minutes the roar of their guns and the howl and crash of shells added to the general clamour. Fortunately they did not appear to have our range, and the shells fell far afield.
"That's what you brought down upon us—you doubting Thomas," Jack remarked facetiously to Reggy. "You've started a nice row now that will last for hours."
"Isn't this great!" Reggy cried like a pleased child. "I wouldn't have missed this for a million."
"I hope Fritzie will miss you for less," laughed the colonel, "or we'll be short an ex-Mess Secretary."
Reggy vouchsafed no reply to this hope.
"We'd better get along out of this," Jack said; "the Bosches may discover their mistake before long and pour a little shower of hate on us."
We got into the motor and started towards the Dickibusch road. At Jack's request we stopped for a few minutes at the ruins of a large schoolhouse which had comprised one city block. The semblance of a building remained, but the walls stood only in jagged patches.
"These are the remains of our Field Ambulance," Jack explained. "Come inside and see; you will get a faint idea of what the 'Jack Johnsons' did to our hospital wards."