In a low log hut, its roof and walls protected by several feet of sand-bags, a soldier sat at a large switchboard with a telephone receiver strapped to his head. As we stood for a moment watching him a bell tinkled. He stuck the small peg into one of the multitudinous little holes. "Allo! This is Number 15," he said in a low voice, then listened intently to some message. "All right," he said at its conclusion. Then turning half round on his stool he saluted and reported: "Mon General, Number 19 reports that a Boche aeroplane has passed them and is coming over us." "Telephone our guns to fire at him, and warn Numbers 11 and 12 to prepare for his coming," ordered the General, and as the soldier stuck his pegs in and gave his telephone messages we hustled out to see the excitement. Sure enough, we had hardly got out when we heard a distant whirring, and high up in the air saw an aeroplane floating our way. [Illustration: Page 70 "WE WERE COMPLETELY ABSORBED IN WATCHING THE SOFT LITTLE CLOUDS PLAYFULLY DANCING ALONG AHEAD OF THE LAZILY DRIFTING AEROPLANE"] "Keep under the tree! Keep under the tree!" warned the General sharply. "If he sees us all standing here, and gets away, he will report this as an important point and it will rain 'marmites' for days to come." So he, his staff-officers, Eyre and I grouped ourselves under a big tree and stared up at the approaching aeroplane through the gaps in its branches. "Whang!" A "soixante-quinze" exploded violently in the woods close by, and I jumped equally violently. "Whang! Whang! Whang!" came three more shots in extremely close succession. "You've got a whole battery shooting, haven't you?" I remarked. "Oh, no! There is only one gun located just there. It does not waste time in firing, does it?" smiled the General. "Our 'soixante-quinze' field-guns can shoot twenty-five shots a minute." Other guns in the immediate neighborhood took up the chorus, and, looking through our glasses, we could see little soft white cloudlets puff into being all around the aeroplane. But he kept sailing calmly on. A little further off in the woods came a staccato rat! tat! tat! tat! tat! like a boy drawing a stick along a picket fence. "There goes one of our mitrailleuses at work on him." We were completely absorbed in watching the soft little clouds playfully dancing along ahead of the lazily drifting aeroplane, when the General's voice brought us back to earth. "Come! Come! We must hurry or we shall be late for lunch. I did not realize how late it was." I looked at him in horror. What! Forsake the sensations of this moment for such a thing as a lunch! Any one of those gentle little white puffs might transform the aeroplane into a hurtling mass of flame. Lunch!