It took some time to discover the working party, but when it was found the trouble was well repaid. Bones was stretched on a canvas chair under the shade of a big Isisi palm. His helmet was tipped forward so that the brim rested on the bridge of his nose, his thin red arms were folded on his breast, and their gentle rise and fall testified to his shame. Two pegs had been driven in, and between them a string sagged half-heartedly. Curled up under a near-by bush was, presumably, Ali Abid--presumably, because all that was visible was a very broad stretch of brown satin skin which showed between the waistline of a pair of white cotton trousers and a duck jacket. They looked down at the unconscious Bones for a long time in silence. "What will he say when I kick him?" asked Hamilton. "You can have the first guess." Sanders frowned thoughtfully. "He'll say that he was thinking out a new system of communicating trenches," he said. "He's been boring me to tears over saps and things." Hamilton shook his head. "Wrong, sir," he said; "that isn't the lie he'll tell. He will say that I kept him up so late last night working at the men's pay-sheets that he couldn't keep awake." Bones slept on. "He may say that it was coffee after tiffin," suggested Sanders after a while; "he said the other day that coffee always made him sleep." "'Swoon' was the word he used, sir," corrected Hamilton. "I don't think he'll offer that suggestion now--the only other excuse I can think of is that he was repeating the Bomongo irregular verbs. Bones!" He stooped and broke off a long grass and inserted it in the right ear of Lieutenant Tibbetts, twiddling the end delicately. Bones made a feeble clutch at his ear, but did not open his eyes. "Bones!" said Hamilton, and kicked him less gently. "Get up, you lazy devil--there's an invasion." Bones leapt to his feet and staggered a little; blinked fiercely at his superior and saluted. "Enemy on the left flank, sir," he reported stiffly. "Shall we have dinner or take a taxi?" "Wake up, Napoleon," begged Hamilton, "you're at Waterloo." Bones blinked more slowly. "I'm afraid I've been unconscious, dear old officer," he confessed. "The fact is----" "Listen to this, everybody," said Hamilton admiringly. "The fact is, sir," said Bones, with dignity, "I fell asleep--that beastly coffee I had after lunch, added to the fatigue of sittin' up half the night with those jolly old accounts of yours, got the better of me. I was sittin' down workin' out one of the dinkiest little ideas in trenches--a sort of communicatin' trench where you needn't get wet in the rainiest weather--when I--well, I just swooned off." Hamilton looked disappointed. "Weren't you doing anything with the Bomongo verbs?" he demanded. A light came to Bones's eyes. "By Jove, sir!" he said heartily, "that was it, of course.... The last thing I remember was...."