Captain Tollward sniffed hard, turned to Stanner, and roared with laughter.
“What ho, the High Explosive!” he shouted, and “What ho, the Forty Rod Gorgonzola—so called because it put the battery-mules out of action at that distance. . . . Who unchained it, I say? Boy, where’s its muzzle?” and he cut himself a generous slice.
Stanner buried his nose in his handkerchief and waved Ali away as he thrust the nutritious if over-prevalent delicacy upon his notice.
“Take it to Bascombe Bwana and ask him to fire it from his guns,” said he. “Serve the Germans right for using poison-gas and liquid fire. . . . Teach ’em a lesson, what, Tollward?”
“Don’t be dev’lish-minded,” replied that officer when laughter permitted him to speak. “You’re as bad as the bally Huns yourself to suggest such an atrocity. . . .”
“Seems kinder radio-active,” said Hall, eyeing it with curiosity. “Menacing . . .” and he also drove it from him.
Bertram, as one who, being at war, faces the horrors of war as they come, took a piece of the cheese and found that its bite, though it skinned the roof of his mouth, was not as bad as its bark. Grayne affected to faint when the cheese reached him, and the others did according to their kind.
Following in the tracks of Ali came another servant, bearing a wooden box, which he tendered to each diner, but as one who goeth through an empty ritual, and without hope that his offering will be accepted. In the box Bertram saw large thick biscuits exceedingly reminiscent of the dog-biscuit of commerce, but paler in hue and less attractive of appearance. He took one, and the well-trained servant only dropped the box in his surprise.
“What are you going to do with that?” enquired Hall.
“Why!—eat it, I suppose,” said Bertram.