The group at the table had time for no more than a pause of astonishment, a few exclamations, a hasty pushing back of chairs, when _rip-rap-bang-bang-bang_ down came the second spray of bullets from those jerking muzzles over on the ’drome. Now a bullet hitting any solid object makes a nasty and most disconcerting sort of noise; but when it hits the tin roof of a Nissen hut, tears through it and the wood lining inside, passes out again or comes to rest in the hut, the noises become involved and resemble all sorts of queer sounds from kicking a tea-tray to treading on an empty match-box. The huts were solidly sand-bagged up their outside walls to a height of some feet, but had no overhead cover whatever. The third burst from Guns and the R.O. arrived on the hut at exactly the same moment as the General and his Staff arrived on the floor as close as they could get to the wall and the protecting sandbags. They stayed there for some exciting minutes while Guns shot numerous holes in the roof, splintered the furniture, and shot the dinner piecemeal off the table. The shooting and the hum of the enemy engine ceased together, and the General and his Staff gathered themselves off the floor and surveyed the wreckage about them. “I just moved in time,” said the Brigade-Major, and pointed to a ragged hole in the seat of his chair. “D’you suppose it was a fluke, or have they got this place spotted?” asked the Captain. “Nasty mess of the roof,” said someone else. The General confined himself to less coherent but much more pungent remarks on all Huns in general, and night-raiders in particular. They seated themselves, and the waiter was just beginning to mop up the smashed bottle of red wine, when the distant hum of another engine was heard. This time the barraged ones reached the floor just a shade ahead of the first tearing burst from Guns and the R.O., and again they held their breath and cowered while the bullets clashed and banged on the tin roof, smacked and cracked on the ground outside, beat another noisy banging tattoo across the next-door huts. The group stayed prone rather longer after the ceasing of fire and engine hum, and had little more than risen to their feet when the third outbreak sent them flinging down into cover again.