"I think he du be right," he said, indicating James; "I've heerd tell on 'un. Great-great-grandfayther used to play."
Another man said that he had seen an old print of the game in a shop, but he thought it was called Ludo.
And then, in a most curious way, I had the sudden feeling that I myself had played the game in some previous existence—when I was a king in Babylon, perhaps, and James was a Christian caddie. It was most odd. When we got back to camp, I spoke to him about it.
"On Boxing Day, James," I whispered, "one might pursue one's researches in this matter. I should like to find out the truth about it. We might meet at——h'r'm! To the left, to two paces, ex-tend!" I added this loudly for the benefit of our platoon commander who was passing, and James (who in ordinary life extends two paces to the front) withdrew slowly into the darkness.
I won't refer to what happened on Boxing Day; one does not talk about these things. But I must tell you of its unfortunate sequel.
Last week, in the course of a route-march, we were suddenly turned on to distance-judging. I had never done this before, and a remote and lonely tree, half-hidden in the mist, conveyed nothing definite to me.
"What do you think?" I asked James.
"A drive and a mashie, about."
"S'sh," I said warningly. However, I determined to act on the suggestion. Remembering Boxing Day I allowed eighty yards for James's drive, and thirty-five for a mashie off the socket. Total, 115. It looked more, but the mist was deceptive. However, when the results were read out, the distance was given as 385 yards, and James, if you please, had said 350!
Let us leave this painful subject and turn to signalling. We are getting a little more proficient. Every message we send now starts properly with prefix, service instructions, code time, and so on, and the message itself gets in as many hyphens, horizontal lines, fractions and inverted commas as possible. Here, for instance, is the beginning of a thrilling message (sent to the Editor of The Times) which I was receiving last Sunday.