"Now," I said.
"Get in yourself ——"
"Presently," I replied, "but you go in now, unless you want to get shoved in."
He dived gracefully and came up near the other bank spluttering and shaking the water off his hair. Bill challenged him to a race and both struck off down the stream, as they swam passing jokes with their comrades on the bank. In the course of ten minutes they returned, perched proudly on the stern of a barge and making ready to dive. At that moment I undressed and went in.
My swim was a very short one; shorter than usual, and I am not much of a swimmer. A searching shell sped over from the German lines hit the ground a few hundred yards to rear of the Canal and whirled a shower of dust into the water, which speedily delivered several hundred nude fighters to the clothes-littered bank. A second and third shell dropping nearer drove all modest thoughts from our minds for the moment (unclothed, a man feels helplessly defenceless), and we hurried into our warrens through throngs of women rushing out to take in their washing.
One of the shells hit the artillery horse lines on the left of the village and seven horses were killed.
CHAPTER XVII
Everyday Life at the Front
There's the butter, gad, and horse-fly,
The blow-fly and the blue,
The fine fly and the coarse fly,
But never flew a worse fly
Of all the flies that flew
Than the little sneaky black fly
That gobbles up our ham,
The beggar's not a slack fly,
He really is a crack fly,
And wolfs the soldiers jam.