"Then we went further back behind the lines. During this stay we rounded out a passable team. A Canadian Battalion, just sent out from England on their way to 'Wipers,' went into billets about a mile from us. This was our chance. Alex went over and proposed a game with them for the following Sunday. The challenge was accepted. We had a week's time in which to strengthen some weaknesses and to teach the bunch a little 'inside' baseball. Then the jinx popped up again. On the morning of the game with the Canadians, our cleverest infielder, the first baseman, picked up an old German hand grenade, and brought it to the billet. This man was a great souvenir collector; always hammering at 'dud' shells, trying to remove the nose-caps. "On seeing him fooling around with the German bomb, I told him to throw it away, saying that one could never trust those things, and that I did not want to take any chances of losing a first baseman; but being of a naturally curious disposition, he refused to do so, and taking the bomb out behind the billet proceeded to take liberties with its mechanism: result, right hand blown off, and another vacancy to be filled at first base. What we said about him would have met with the highest approval of exponents of German Kultur. "The game was scheduled for two o'clock, and at exactly one-thirty-five Mr. Fritz plunked a stray 'five-nine' shell into our infield between home and first base, making a hole big enough for a limber to hide in. This meant picks and shovels for all hands to fill in the hole. By this time a large crowd of rooters of both sides had lined themselves along the foul lines. The compliments that were wafted back and forth made the Sky Pilot pick up and leave before the game started. "Betting waxed hot and furious. I don't believe there was a loose penny in the crowd after all bets had been placed. Alex and I tried to discourage this betting because we knew that if our side lost we would be ostracised from that time on. We explained to the Tommies that the Canadians were baseball players, and that we were in for an awful trimming, but they wouldn't listen, saying that anybody who could make a ball curve in the air the way Alex could was enough to win for any team, and all the Canadians could do was to strike out. We argued no further, just sighed after losing the toss.