"Anything. Ask him, if a herring and a half costs three ha'pence, how much——"
"Yes, but that's too long. It would take me at least a week, and by that time the herring would be censored. No, I've got it."
It has occurred to me suddenly that it would annoy James if I reminded him of his professional life. He looks so military in his puttees and khaki shirt.
"Do—you—want—a—nice—mortgage?" I signal.
James takes it up to "nice," and then breaks down. The "m-o" he reads as "s-w" (an easy mistake to make), and he imagines that I am offering him a nice sword—a fitting offer to one of his martial appearance. When the third letter turns out to be not the "o" which he expected, he loses his head and signals "Repeat."
I give it him again slowly. He reads the first five letters as s-w-r-t-g and assumes this time that I am offering him a nice town in Poland. It is five minutes before we get the mortgage properly established, and by then James is utterly disgusted.
He is now going to send a message to me. There is nothing half-hearted about James when he has his khaki shirt on.
"Why the devil don't you send up those guns?" he signals.
General James is hard pressed. The enemy is advancing in echelon against his left wing; cavalry beat themselves against the hollow square on his right; his centre has formed platoon after platoon unavailingly. Still the enemy comes on. Where the devil are those guns?
I signalled back: