"WE WERE COMPLETELY ABSORBED IN WATCHING THE SOFT
LITTLE CLOUDS PLAYFULLY DANCING ALONG AHEAD OF
THE LAZILY DRIFTING AEROPLANE"
"Telephone our guns to fire at him, and warn Numbers 11 and 12 to prepare for his coming," ordered the General, and as the soldier stuck his pegs in and gave his telephone messages we hustled out to see the excitement. Sure enough, we had hardly got out when we heard a distant whirring, and high up in the air saw an aeroplane floating our way.
"Keep under the tree! Keep under the tree!" warned the General sharply. "If he sees us all standing here, and gets away, he will report this as an important point and it will rain 'marmites' for days to come."
So he, his staff-officers, Eyre and I grouped ourselves under a big tree and stared up at the approaching aeroplane through the gaps in its branches.
"Whang!" A "soixante-quinze" exploded violently in the woods close by, and I jumped equally violently.
"Whang! Whang! Whang!" came three more shots in extremely close succession.
"You've got a whole battery shooting, haven't you?" I remarked.
"Oh, no! There is only one gun located just there. It does not waste time in firing, does it?" smiled the General. "Our 'soixante-quinze' field-guns can shoot twenty-five shots a minute."