“Can you give us some gas?” enquired the Major, after we had been introduced, and had shaken hands.
“Certainly, sir!” nodded the cheerful sub. “Delighted!”
“You might explain something about it, if you will,” suggested the Major. “Bombs and gas is your line, you know.”
The sub. beamed, and giving certain directions to his sergeant, spake something on this wise.
“Well, ‘Frightful Fritz’—I mean the Boches, y’know, started bein’ frightful some time ago, y’know—playin’ their little tricks with gas an’ tear-shells an’ liquid fire an’ that, and we left ’em to it. Y’see, it wasn’t cricket—wasn’t playin’ the game—what! But Fritz kept at it and was happy as a bird, till one day we woke up an’ started bein’ frightful too, only when we did begin we were frightfuller than ever Fritz thought of bein’—yes, rather! Our gas is more deadly, our lachrymatory shells are more lachrymose an’ our liquid fire’s quite tophole—won’t go out till it burns out—rather not! So Frightful Fritz is licked at his own dirty game. I’ve tried his and I’ve tried ours, an’ I know.”
Here the sergeant murmured deferentially into the sub.’s ear, whereupon he beamed again and nodded.
“Everything’s quite ready!” he announced, “so if you’re on?”
Here, after a momentary hesitation, I signified I was, whereupon our sub. grew immensely busy testing sundry ugly, grey flannel gas helmets, fitted with staring eye-pieces of talc and with a hideous snout in front.
Having duly fitted on these clumsy things and buttoned them well under our coat collars, having shown us how we must breathe out through the mouthpiece which acts as a kind of exhaust, our sub. donned his own headpiece, through which his cheery voice reached me in muffled tones: