* * * * * Watts was the guest at the informal trench luncheon. The officers showed him little favors from time to time, for he had served their wounded faithfully for many months. It is the highest honor they can pay when they admit a civilian to the first line of trenches. Shelling from Westend was mild and inaccurate, going high overhead and falling with a mutter into the seven-times wrecked and thoroughly deserted houses of Nieuport village. But the sound of it gave a gentle tingle to the act of eating. There was occasional rifle fire, the bullet singing close. "They're improving," said the Commandant, "a fellow reached over the trench this morning for his Billy-can, and they got him in the hand." Two Marins cleared away the plank on which bread and coffee and tinned meat had been served. The hot August sun cooked the loose earth, and heightened the smells of food. A swarm of flies poured over the outer rim and dropped down on squatting men and the scattered commissariat. Watts was sitting at a little distance from the group. He closed his eyes, but soon began striking methodically at the settling flies. He fought them with the right arm and the left in long heavy strokes, patiently, without enthusiasm. The soldiers brought out a pack of cards, and leaned forward for the deal. Suddenly Watts rose, lifted his arms above the trench, and deliberately stretched. Three faint cracks sounded from across the hillock, and he tumbled out at full length, as if some one had flung him away. The men hastened to him, coming crouched over but swiftly. "Got him in the right arm," said the Commandant. "Thank God," muttered Watts, sleepily. * * * * * It was the Convent Hospital of Furnes. There was quiet in the ward of twenty-five beds, where side by side slept the wounded of France and Germany and Belgium and England. Suddenly, a resounding whack rang through the ward. A German boy jumped up sitting in his cot. The sound had awakened memories. He looked over to the tall Englishman in the next cot, who had struck out at one of the heavy innumerable flies, who hover over wounded men, and pry down under bandages. "Let me tell you," said the youth eagerly, "I have a preparation--I'm a chemist, you know--I've worked out a powder that kills flies." Watts looked up from his pillow. His face was weary. "It's sweet, you know, and attracts them," went on the boy, "then the least sniff of it finishes them. They trail away, and die in a few minutes. You can clear a room in half an hour. Then all you have to do is to sweep up." "See here," he said, "I'll show you. Sister," he called. The nurse hurried to his side. "Sister? You were kind enough to save my kit. May I have it a moment?" He took out a tin flask, and squeezed it--a brown powder puffed through the pin-point holes at the mouth. It settled in a dust on the white coverlet.