"What cursed gun? I am fresh from Ciro's and the haunts of love and ease. Expound to me your enigma, my Land Crab."
"Haven't you heard? When the Germans——"
He stopped suddenly. "Listen!" Perfectly clear from the woods to the north of them—the woods that lie to the west of the Woesten-Oostvleteren road, for those who may care for maps—there came the distinctive boom! crack! of a smallish gun. Three more shots, and then silence. The gunner turned to Dick.
"There you are—that's the gun."
"But how nice! Only, why curse it?"
"Principally because it's German; and those four shots that you have just heard have by this time burst in Poperinghe."
"What!" O'Rourke looked at him in amazement. "Is it my leg you would be pulling?"
"Certainly not. When the Germans came on in the first blind rush after the French two small guns on motor mountings got through behind our lines. One was completely wrecked with its detachment The motor mounting of the other you can see lying in a pond about a mile up the road. The gun is there." He pointed to the wood.
"And the next!" said O'Rourke. "D'you mean to tell me that there is a German gun in that wood firing at Poperinghe? Why, hang it, man! it's three miles behind our lines."
"Taking the direction those shells are coming from, the distance from Poperinghe to that gun must be more than ten miles—if the gun is behind the German trenches. Your gunnery is pretty rotten, I know, but if you know of any two-inch gun that shoots ten miles, I'll be obliged if you'll give me some lessons." The gunner lit a cigarette. "Man, we know it's not one of ours, we know where they all are; we know it's a Hun."