His laughter suddenly developed into a coughing and
spluttering, spitting and swearing, which in itself was strong enough to
drive all the flies in existence away.

"Bust the things!" he spluttered. "I got a mouthful of them! They might
have just come off some dirty Bosche. Got a drink on you?"

"Yes," I said, and handed him my water-bottle.

He rinsed out his mouth.

"I do believe it's worth risking shrapnel rather than tolerate these
vile things!" he remarked. "But excuse my laughter; you did look funny
coming along there."

"Yes, I expect I did," I said, still puffing away at my cigarettes. "I'd
smoke a dozen at once if I could. Anything to keep the flies away."

"Well," he said, "I'm stumped. Have you one to spare?"

I handed him my case. He lighted up and both of us, puffing as hard as
we could, made quite a healthy volume of smoke. From above it must have
looked as if a small fire was raging.

We had sat there alternately puffing and chatting and killing flies by
the hundreds for about ten minutes. I told him I wanted to get some
scenes of Trones. He politely told me I ought to have brought my keeper
out with me, but as he was going in that direction he would help me on
the way to being killed by carrying my tripod.

We started off. The shelling was getting unpleasantly near. Phoot-bang!
We both ducked, my head getting a nasty knock against the tripod top.
For the moment I thought I had been struck by the whizz-bang. Presently
we reached a junction in the trench, and as my friend's road lay in an
opposite direction we parted, and I trudged on alone.

I was brought to a standstill by a mound of earth which completely
blocked the way. By all appearances the shell that had caused it could
have only come over a few minutes before, for a thin wisp of smoke was
still curling up from the debris. "Well," I thought, placing my kit on
the ground, "it's got to be done; so over I go." Here the air was
completely free from flies. Evidently the gas from the bursting shell
had choked them off for a time. Jove! I was glad. It was like heaven;
and my tongue was beginning to burn rather badly through fiercely
smoking two cigarettes at once.

Cautiously I crept up to the top of the parapet! What a sight! Shells
were falling thick and fast over Trones and towards Baentin-le-Grand. I
must film this, Bosche or no Bosche! So hastily fixing up my tripod, I
fastened on the camera and began exposing. "Excellent," I thought;
"