The other looked at him calmly.
“What do you think I stopped it for?” he asked.
II
THE TURK IN THE PERISCOPE
The same Correspondent writes:
I am sure that wherever the old 5th Light Horsemen, who put in such a warm spell at “Chatham’s”[4] some time ago, congregate after this war the following incident will be told and retold:
Bill Blankson was a real hard case, happy-go-lucky, regardless of danger. Bill was put on sapping for over a fortnight, and at the end of that time had a growth of stubble that would have brought a flush of pride to his dirty face if he had seen it. But he hadn’t seen it—one does not carry a looking-glass when sapping.
At the end of the fortnight he was taken off sapping and put on observing.
Anyone who has used a periscope knows that unless the periscope is held well up before the eyes, instead of the landscape, one sees only one’s own visage reflected in the lower glass.
Bill did not hold the periscope up far enough, and what he saw in it was a dark, dirty face with a wild growth of black stubble glaring straight back at him. He dropped the periscope, grabbed his rifle, and scrambled up the parapet, fully intending to finish the Turk who had dared to look down the other end of his periscope.
He had mistaken his own reflection for a Turk’s.