Guns paused in bewilderment, and stared vacantly a moment at the empty sky. Somehow now in daylight it seemed so very obvious the bullets must come down; whereas shooting up into the dark it had never occurred. The General pulled his horse round and rode straight over to the Squadron office. There he found the Major and a map, had the exact position of the barrage guns pointed out to him, and in turn pointed out where the H.Q. camp lay. The R.O., who was working in the outer office, sat shivering at the wrathful remarks that boiled out of the next room and ended with a demand for the presence of the Gunnery Officer. The R.O. himself departed hurriedly to send him, and then took refuge in the hangar farthest removed from the office. A sense of fair play and sharing the blame drove him reluctantly back to the office in time to hear the effective close of the General’s remarks. “Barrage, sir!—barrage! Splashing thousands of bullets all over a country scattered with camps. Are you mad, sir? Air barrage! Go’ bless your eyes, man, d’you think you’re in London that you must go filling the sky with barrages and bullets and waking me and every other man within miles with your cursed row. Suppose you had shot someone—suppose you _have_ shot someone. Blank blank your air barrage. You’d better go back to England, where you’ll be in the fashion with your air barrages and anti-aircraft. Am I to be driven from my bed on a filthy cold night to ...” he spluttered explosively and stopped short. If the Division heard the details of his share in the incident, had the chance to picture him racing for the dug-out, sitting shivering in scanty night attire, and add to the picture as they’d certainly do, the joke would easily outlive the war and him. “That will do, sir,” he said after a brief pause, “I’ll have a word with your Major and leave him to deal with you.” Guns came out with his head hanging, to join the pale-cheeked R.O. and escape with him. Ten minutes after a message came to him that the General wanted him in the C.O.’s office, and Guns groaned and went back to hear his sentence, estimating it at anything between “shot at dawn” and cashiered, broke, and sent out of the Service. Now, what the C.O. had said in those ten minutes nobody ever knew, but Guns found a totally different kind of General awaiting him.