In a field behind the support line there grows, or rather, rots, a crop of derelict and much-bombarded turnips. Last night Eddie, after a conference with his officer, Boone Cruttenden, and the top machine-gun sergeant, disappeared for an hour into the _hinterland_, and brought back with him an armful of selected esculents. The largest of these he proceeded this morning to spear upon a flat lath of wood. Upon the top of this eminence he perched his own steel helmet, at a jaunty angle. Attended by a respectfully interested cohort of disciples, or rubbernecks, he next selected a suitable spot in the front-line trench, and with the help of a length of rope and a little ingenuity succeeded in lashing the turnip-laden lath to the revetment of the parapet in such a fashion as to make it possible to slide the lath up and down. It was a still, sunny, September morning, and the whole line was quiet, except for an occasional rifle-shot, and the intermittent boom of artillery beyond the next hill-crest to the south. Eddie’s preliminary adjustments were barely completed when Boone Cruttenden arrived, carrying a periscope and attended by the machine-gun sergeant. “Got everything fixed, Gillette?” enquired Boone. “Yes, _sir_,” replied Eddie, ignoring the cynical smiles of Joe McCarthy, who was present in the capacity of dramatic critic. “Right,” said Boone. “Go to it!” The inventor cautiously slid the lath up in its groove, until the helmet-crowned turnip stood some six inches above the parapet, offering a goodly mark against the sky. Then crouching down, he waited. The spectators, with remarkable unanimity, followed his example. _Crack!_ A bullet shaved the top sandbag and buried itself with a vicious thud in the back wall of the trench. “Missed!” announced Gillette calmly. “We better let him try again.” “Lower the turnip a couple of minutes first,” advised Boone. “A real man wouldn’t keep his head up there all the time—unless it was a bone one!” Gillette complied, and waited. “What’s the big idea, Ed?” enquired Al Thompson respectfully. “The big idea,” replied Eddie, “is first of all to let that Dutchman over there drill a hole in this turnip. Then, if we peek through the hole, we shall be looking along the track of the bullet—at this range it would travel on a pretty-nigh flat line—and we shall see the exact place the bullet started from, which is what we are after. In case we don’t get the exact location, we will put up another turnip some other place in the trench, and get a cross-bearing from that. That’s the big idea, boys!” “And who,” enquired the grating voice of Mr. Joe McCarthy, “is the poor fish who’s gonna put his bean up above the parapet and peek through the hole?” Eddie Gillette forbore to reply, but resumed his operations with added dignity, sliding his turnip-head once more into the enemy’s view. There was another crack, and the steel helmet oscillated sharply.