"ever since that cuckoo
called I've felt queer."

Gary, brooding in his soiled tunic collar, began to mutter presently: "I
once knew a man in a lighthouse down in Florida who couldn't stand it
after a bit and jumped off."

"Oh, we've heard that twenty times," interrupted Carfax wearily.

Gray said: "_What_ a jump!--I mean down into Alsace below----"

"You're all going dotty!" snapped Carfax. "Shut up or you'll be doing
it--some of you."

"I can't sleep. That's where I'm getting queer," insisted Flint. "If I
could get a few hours' sleep now----"

"I wish to God the Boches could reach you with a big gun. That would put
you to sleep, all right!" said Gray.

"This war is likely to end before any of us see a Fritz," said Carfax. "I
could stand it, too, except being up here with such"--his voice dwindled
to a mutter, but it sounded to Gary as though he had used the word
"rotters."

Flint's face had a white, strained expression; he began to walk about,
saying aloud to himself: "If I could only sleep. That's the idea--sleep it
off, and wake up somewhere else. It's the silence, or the voices--I don't
know which. You dollar-crazy Yankees and ignorant Provincials don't
realize what a cuckoo is. You've no traditions, anyway--no past, nothing
to care for----"

"Listen to 'Arry!" retorted Gary--"'Arry and his cuckoo!"

Carfax stirred heavily. "Shut up!" he said, with an effort. "The thing is
to keep doing something--something--anything--except quarrelling."

He picked up a tennis ball. "Come on, you funking brutes! I'll teach you
how to play cuckoo. Every man takes three tennis balls and stands in a
corner of the room. I stand in the middle. Then you blow out the candle.
Then I call 'cuckoo!' in the dark and you try to hit me, aiming by the
sound of my voice. Every time I'm hit I pay ten shillings to the pool,
take my place in a corner, and have a shot at the next man, chosen by lot.
And if you throw three balls apiece and nobody hits me, then you each pay
ten shillings to me and I'm cuckoo for another round."

"We aim at random?" inquired Gray, mildly interested.

"Certainly. It must be played in pitch darkness. When I call out cuckoo,
you take a shot at where you think I am. If you all miss, you all pay. If
I'm hit, I pay."

Gary chose three tennis balls and retired to a corner of the room; Gray
and Flint, urged into action, took three each, unwillingly.

"Blow out the candle," said Carfax, who had walked into th