"He was not left wondering long, for the Bosches followed him into that very house. There was a small table in one corner covered with a large cloth. Under this de Blavincourt dived, and not a second too soon, for the Bosches—seven of them—followed him into that very room and, setting up their machine gun at the window, commenced to pop off down the street. Charming state of affairs for little de Blavincourt—alone and unarmed in a room full of bristling Huns with that fatal map in his possession.
"Sweating all over he eased the map out of his pocket and slowly and silently commenced to eat it.
"You know what those things are like. A yard square of tough paper backed by indestructible calico—one might as well try to devour a child's rag book.
"Anyhow that's what de Blavincourt did. He ate it, and it took him forty hours to do the trick. For forty hours day and night he squatted under that table, with the Huns sitting upon and around it, and gnawed away at that square yard of calico.
"Just before the dawn of the third day he gulped the last corner down and peeped out under the tablecloth. The Bosch on guard was oiling the lock of the machine-gun. Two more he could hear in the kitchen clattering pots about. The remaining four were asleep, grotesquely sprawled over sofas and chairs.
"De Blavincourt determined to chance it. He could not stop under the table for ever, and even at the worst that map, that precious map, was out of harm's way. He crept stealthily from his hiding-place, dealt the kneeling Bosch a terrific kick in the small of the back, dived headlong out of the window and galloped down the street towards our Lewis gunners, squealing, ' Friend! Ros'bif! Not'arf!'—which, in spite of his three years of interpreting, was all the English he could muster at the moment. The Huns emptied their automatics after him, but only one bullet found the target, and that an outer.
"'I weesh it vos t'rough my 'eart,' he told me later, tears rolling down his cheeks. 'Vot more use to me my life, hein? My stomach she is for ever ruin.'"
The General laughed. "Stout fellow for a' that."
"I grant you," said the Brigadier, "but a fellow should be stout along accepted lines. 'To Lieutenant Felix Marcel, Comte de Blavincourt, the Military Cross for eating his map.' No, Sir, it can't be done."
The Horse-master, who was helping himself to old tawny, nodded vigorously and muttered "No, by Jove, it can't."