Second Lieutenant Archibald Smith certainly looked harmless enough. He was thin and freckled, and his big blue eyes gazed appealingly through his glasses.
"Where did you get that wire you had just now?" asked the Adjutant.
Smith beamed. "I got it just behind the wood, sir. There's a lot of old wi ..." but the Major interrupted him. "That's the place," he cried excitedly. "Well, what the devil did you go cutting my wire for?"
Archibald Smith looked at him in alarmed fascination. "I didn't think it was any good, sir. I wa-wanted some string, and...."
"What did you want string for? Were you going to hang yourself to the roof of your dug-out?"
"No, sir. I wanted to wrap up a p-parcel to send home, sir. I wa-anted to send back some socks and underclothes to be darned. I'm very sorry, sir."
"Sorry? Sorry be damned, and your underclothes too!" And the Battery Major, who had more bad language at his disposal than most men in the Army, for once forgot he was in the presence of a senior officer.
While the Major, his subaltern, and three men with a roll of wire wended their sorry way back to the battery, Archibald Smith, surprised and hurt, sat in his dug-out, amusing himself by making fierce bayonet thrusts at his parcel, and alternately wishing it were the Major or himself.