But, when evening came and the tower still stood untouched, 0000th Battery began to be worried indeed. A little more of this and they might as well blow themselves up. They would be disgraced, a laughing-stock to the whole Front. After hopeless arguments and bitter recriminations they turned in with the intention of beginning again bright and early in one last stupendous effort.
Great and shattering was their surprise when the dawn showed them no tower at all, nothing but a heap of rubble in the midst of desolation. The hated O.P. had disappeared in the night.
0000th Battery rubbed its eyes and wild surmise ran from man to man. "An unexploded shell must 'ave gorn orf in the night."
"A mine may 'ave bin laid under 'er, and somethink's touched it off, like."
But the real explanation, stranger still, was supplied later by a letter dropped from a Taube flying over the Battery's position. It ran thus:—
"Having noticed with regret that the enemy objected to the tower in front of X position, the Ober-Kommando gave orders to have it removed, in the interests of the surrounding country."
"Once or twice in the course of his speech Mr. Macdonald spoke of himself and his Labour friends as 'we.' 'Who are "we"?' sharply challenged Mr. Wardle, reviving a question familiar in the annals of split parties. 'You knof perfectly wel thlat you are not inclueddin the "we,"' was the retort."—Manchester Guardian.
Pretty crushing, wasn't it?