man had, he declared, heard shells whistling over
his billet. They had, however, been preceded by
no sound of guns. Investigation of the ghostly
incident had proved that the shell whistling had
come from chickens in the yard. These clever
birds had after many months learned to imitate
precisely the distant passing of shells.
The colonel finished his tea and lighted a cigar.
“We've devised," he said, "a letter which I fancy the editor will have to print or else acknowledge he's been made a fool of."
He found the letter, put on his glasses, and read it with an air of satisfaction.
The army in this section, it regretted, was seriously affected by loss of sleep. The crickets had acquired a most annoying practice of imitating machine guns. Constantly they disturbed rest by firing an apparent salvo in a man's ear. The squirrels made a noise like approaching whiz. bangs. Worst of all, a big bullfrog in a pool near his headquarters had caught the raucous trick of the gas alarm.
"'It's a rare night when he doesn't sit on his bank and call us forth with our masks on. So far he has resisted our best snipers.'"
For a moment in the little room our laughter was louder than the gun mutter. Williams left us to telephone somebody, probably about going back
