"Sorry, but B Company is using the bullet."
It was a blow to James. Reluctantly he came to his decision.
"Must fall back," he said, and he caught a flag between his legs and did so....
Well, there you have us signalling. To show you us skirmishing I cannot do better than describe the fierce engagement between A and C Companies, which resulted in the entire annihilation of A. But perhaps that would not be fair. I am a prejudiced recorder; let one of A Company speak.
He was annoyed.
"We worked round their flank," he said, "and we'd got quite close up to them under cover of a wood when we came on one of them smoking a pipe. He said he was an outpost, and that he'd decimated us all long ago."
"What did you do?" asked his friend.
"We scragged him."
Personally I had a safer position among the supports. A decimated enemy in the first flush of annoyance can be dangerous. I merely lay in a ditch and counted ants.... But I was very glad to hear we'd won.
Rifle exercises go on apace. We have a curious collection of weapons ("weapons of precision" as they are called by those who have never seen my targets), an order for six hundred of one family having fallen through, owing to a clerical error. "We can offer you 600 rifles, 1900 pattern," the firm wrote; but an inspection of them showed that the "6" and the "9" had got mixed up.