"Map reference?" murmured the B.M. "Oh, my sacred aunt, what fools ... I'm sorry" (he smiled at them through his teeth) "I can't give you the m-map reference, but I can give you the area roughly."
"Barmy!" was the word he heard spoken to a bystander at the other end.
"Look here, old man," they said kindly, "we know you're all very tired and worried, but just try to think a moment. Never mind dumps now. You can't be making all that noise moving a dump—what?" (Specimen of Divisional joke—very rare.) "Tell us, is the Bosch shelling?"
"No. They've stopped."
"Good. Then it's all over?"
"No. It's still going on."
"But you just said that it had stopped."
"Yes, it has. But the dump hasn't. It keeps m-moving."
"Poor old bird," they said, "his nerve's gone at last. All right," they shouted, "don't you worry. The storeman will look after the dump. You go to bed and have a good sleep."
"Have a g-good sleep!" muttered the B.M., "that's just like the Divis—Oh!" and he sat down as a torpedo flopped into his bedroom a few doors away and made a hole of it.