"Aw, hell," he said, "did I come out here for this?--nine months of it?" He hurled the tennis ball at the wall. "Can the home talk, if you don’t mind." The cuckoo was still calling. "Did you ever play cuckoo," asked Carfax, "at ten shillings a throw? It’s not a bad game--if you’re put to it for amusement." Nobody replied; Gray’s sunken, boyish face betrayed no interest; he continued to toss a tennis ball against the wall and catch it on the rebound. Toward sundown the usual Alpine chill set in; a mist hung over the snow-edged cliffs; the rocks breathed steam under a foggy and battered moon. CHAPTER III CUCKOO! Carfax, on duty, sat hunched up over the telephone, reporting to the fortress. Gray came in, closed the wooden shutters, hung blankets over them, lighted an oil stove and then a candle. Flint took up the cards, looked at Gary, then flung them aside, muttering. Nobody attempted to read; nobody touched the cards again. An orderly came in with soup. The meal was brief and perfectly silent. Flint said casually, after the table had been cleared: "I haven’t slept for a month. If I don’t get some sleep I’ll go queer. I warn you; that’s all. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s so." "They’re dirty beasts to keep us here like this," muttered Gary--"nine months of it, and not a shot." "There’ll be a few shots if things don’t change," remarked Flint in a colourless voice. "I’m getting wrong in my head. I can feel it." Carfax turned from the switchboard with a forced laugh: "Thinking of shooting up the camp?" "That or myself," replied Flint in a quiet voice; "ever since that cuckoo called I’ve felt queer." Gary, brooding in his soiled tunic collar, began to mutter presently: "I once knew a man in a lighthouse down in Florida who couldn’t stand it after a bit and jumped off." "Oh, we’ve heard that twenty times," interrupted Carfax wearily. Gray said: "_What_ a jump!--I mean down into Alsace below----" "You’re all going dotty!" snapped Carfax. "Shut up or you’ll be doing it--some of you." "I can’t sleep. That’s where I’m getting queer," insisted Flint. "If I could get a few hours’ sleep now----" "I wish to God the Boches could reach you with a big gun. That would put you to sleep, all right!" said Gray. "This war is likely to end before any of us see a Fritz," said Carfax. "I could stand it, too, except being up here with such"--his voice dwindled to a mutter, but it sounded to Gary as though he had used the word "rotters." Flint’s face had a white, strained expression; he began to walk about, saying aloud to himself: "If I could only sleep. That’s the idea--sleep it off, and wake up somewhere else. It’s the silence, or the voices--I don’t know which. You dollar-crazy Yankees and ignorant Provincials don’t realize what a cuckoo is. You’ve no traditions, anyway--no past, nothing to care for----" "Listen to ’Arry!" retorted Gary--"’Arry and his cuckoo!"