The Major smiled and shook his head.
"I have a good many sergeants here and they can't all have 'em! Now come and see my lecture theatres."
Presently, looming through the rain, I saw huge circular structures that I could make nothing of, until, entering the larger of the two, I stopped in surprise, for I looked down into a huge, circular amphitheatre, with circular rows of seats descending tier below tier to a circular floor of sand, very firm and hard.
"All made out of empty oil cans!" said the Major, tapping the nearest can with his whip. "I have 'em filled with sand and stacked as you see!—good many thousands of 'em here. Find it good for sound too—shout and try! This place holds about five thousand men—"
"Whose wonderful idea was this?"
"Oh, just a little wheeze of my own. Now, how about the poison gas; feel like going through it?"
I glanced at K., K. glanced at me. I nodded, so did K.
"Certainly!" said I. Wherefore the Major led us over sandy hills and along sandy valleys and so to a dingy and weather-worn hut, in whose dingy interior we found a bright-faced subaltern in dingy uniform and surrounded by many dingy boxes and a heterogeneous collection of things. The subaltern was busy at work on a bomb with a penknife, while at his elbow stood a sergeant grasping a screwdriver, who, perceiving the Major, came to attention, while the cheery sub. rose, beaming.
"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!"