“Oh, no, sir! Bombs are well behaved if you treat them right. It’s all in being thoughtful and considerate of them!” Meanwhile, he was jerking at some kind of a patent fuse set in a shell of high explosive. “This is a poor kind, sir. It’s been discarded, but I thought that you might like to see it. Never did like it. Always making trouble!” More distance between the audience and the performer. “Now I’ve got it, sir--get down, sir!” The audience carried out instructions to the letter, as army regulations require. It got behind the protection of one of the practice-trench traverses. He threw the discard beyond another wall of earth. There was a sharp report, a burst of smoke, and some fragments of earth were tossed into the air. In a small affair of two hundred yards of trench a week before, it was estimated that the British and the Germans together threw about five thousand bombs in this fashion. It was enough to sadden any Minister of Munitions. However, the British kept the trench. “Do the men like to become bombers?” I asked the subaltern. “I should say so! It puts them up in front. It gives them a chance to throw something, and they don’t get much cricket in France, you see. We had a pupil here last week, who broke the throwing record for distance. He was as pleased as Punch with himself. A first-class bombing detachment has a lot of pride of corps.” To bomb soon became as common a verb with the army as to bayonet. “We bombed them out” meant a section of trench taken. As you know, a trench is dug and built with sandbags in zigzag traverses. In following the course of a trench it is as if you followed the sides of the squares of a checkerboard up and down and across on the same tier of squares. The square itself is a bank of earth, with the cut on either side and in front of it. When a bombing party bombs their way into possession of a section of German trench, there are Germans under cover of the traverses on either side. They are waiting around the corner to shoot the first British head that shows itself. “It is important that you and not the _Boches_ chuck the bombs over first,” explained the subaltern. “Also, that you get them into the right traverse, or they may be as troublesome to you as to the enemy.” With bombs bursting in their faces, the Germans who are not put out of action are blinded and stunned. In the moment when they are thus off guard, the aggressors leap around the corner. “And then?” “Stick ’em, sir!” said the matter-of-fact sergeant. “Yes, the cold steel is best. And do it first! As Mr. MacPherson said, it’s very important to do it first.” It has been found that something short is handy for this kind of work. In such cramped quarters--a ditch six feet deep and from two to three feet broad--the rifle is an awkward length to permit of prompt and skilful use of the bayonet.