"I tell you, I'm jolly glad to be away from headquarters. We've got old Rusty in charge of us. He's been a bit of a worry-guts about having cleaned boots and buttons ever since he got his second pip, but he's quite a decent old stick taking him all round. He gets drunk every evening, so that he's generally too far gone to trouble about lights out. He doesn't make a fuss over our letters either--I believe he can only read a very plain hand and has to skip the longer words. A good job, too, for that's one thing I absolutely cannot stick, the way all our letters are read.... "I hear you've had some excitement? It put my wind up a bit when I heard about it. Still, I'm glad in a way--the monotony of our lives was becoming unbearable. I'd rather have shell-bursts than blasts of the S.M.'s whistle. Have many been dropping in the town recently?" "A good few--I daresay you'll have some to-night if you're lucky. Yes, the S.M.'s whistle got on my nerves too. I was longing for a change and frightfully keen on seeing a bit of the war. I confess I wasn't particularly scared by the shells we had--of course, none of them came very near. But I don't want to have any more, not after seeing those wounded carried along on stretchers to-day. You're right in the town here and it's quite likely that you'll make a closer acquaintance with high-explosive shells than I've been able to make...." I had hardly spoken when there was a faint muffled boom in the distance and a long, deepening howl, and then a loud explosion that shook the building. A few minutes after a second shell passed overhead and exploded somewhere in the town.