I had just dictated provisional Battalion Orders for the morrow; made the usual mistakes in the weekly Strength Return; and was wrestling with an incomprehensible document—highly prized by that section of the Round Games Department which sees to it that wherever the British soldier goes, whether singly or in battalions, his daily rations and weekly pay are diverted from their normal course to meet him—when there came a scuttering of hooves, and Master Roy Birnie, our esteemed sniping and intelligence officer, came flying round the corner on a borrowed horse (mine), as if all the Germans in Picardy were after him. However, this was merely Roy’s exuberant way of coming home for his tea. He descended, hitched his steed to the farm-pump, and came striding into the kitchen with blood in his young eye. I dismissed the sergeant in quest of tea. Roy favoured me with a formal salute, then sat down, and began: "Uncle Alan, I wonder why every battalion in the British Army (except ours) is entirely composed of damn fools!" "I have heard that speculation so often upon the lips of members of other units of the British Army," I replied, "that I have given up trying to find the answer. Tell me your trouble." Roy accepted the invitation at once. "Well," he said, "I had a peach of an observation post up in the front line. It was an old derelict mill-wheel affair—one of those contraptions you see on the end wall of every farm-house in this country, with a poor brute of a mongrel dog inside, treadmilling away to work a churn, or play the pianola, or something. It lies out flat in front of C Company’s sector, on top of a little rise, looking like nothing at all. You know it?" "Yes," I said. "It has been there for months; it is one of the accepted features of the landscape by this time." "That’s right; the Boche has never suspected it. Well, I have been using it as an O. Pip for six weeks. There is a private covered sap leading out to it, and once you’re inside you can stand in a pit, with your little circular peep-show all round you. Why, through one loophole I can see right away to Beaumont Hamel! Now, as you know, ten days ago we handed over to the Late and Dirties. This morning, when I went up into the line to see about taking over again to-morrow, what do you think I found—in my own special private O.P.?" "I don’t know," I said. "A hairpin?" "Uncle Alan, for the Lord’s sake don’t play the fool! I’ll _tell_ you what I found; the whole floor of the post—_my_ post, mind you—was covered with empty cartridge cases! Some Late-and-Dirty perisher had been in there with a rifle, firing volleys—no, _salvoes_—out of it! With an oily barrel, too, I’ll bet! Of course the Boche has the place registered now; and next time there is any general unpleasantness brewing, up it will go! And I hope the Late-and-Dirty dog who gave it away will be inside, that’s all!"