"Serve them right," we said.
Next day we returned to the trucks to try again. The sentry was engaged in a little conversation, and whilst Chardenal took his photograph (ostensibly for The Daily Snap as "Sentry Guarding a Train") I slipped behind the trucks, opened a couple of lids in the tails of some field-guns, picked out two cases of sights and hurried off. Chardenal joined me later and, concealing our swag under our British warms, we walked as quickly as we could until the Brigadier stopped and had a little chat with us about things in general. And there we had to stand for a quarter of an hour on a freezing afternoon with two fingers holding the box and the other fingers holding the coat down to effect better concealment. Chardenal was in so much pain and wore such an expression of agonized innocence that the Brigadier wanted him to come into headquarters until he felt better.
"Well, what have you got?" asked Carfax, another candidate for demobilisation, when we finally got back and showed him the cases.
"Only two?" he cried, "and you promised me one!" We said things.
"What lenses are they?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Chardenal, "but, whatever's the heaviest kind, that's the kind we've brought."
And we opened the boxes and they were empty.
The baronial hall will remain unfurnished. I'm fed up with the whole business.
L.