are. To hoist
the Briton with his own petard is particularly sweet to the German
mind.... But here it is that military genius comes in. Some gifted
spirit on our side procured (probably by larceny) a length of mine fuse,
the rapid sort, and spent a laborious day removing the red thread and
making it into the likeness of its slow brother. Then bits of it were
attached to tin-bombs and shied--unlit of course--into the German
trenches. A long but happy pause followed. I can see the chaps holding
themselves in. Hans and Fritz were understood to be creeping back, to be
examining the unlit fuse, to be applying a light thereunto, in order to
restore it to its maker after their custom....

"A loud bang in the German trenches indicated the moment of lighting,
and the exit of Hans and Fritz to worlds less humorous.

"The genius in the British trenches went on with the preparation of the
next surprise bomb--against the arrival of Kurt and Karl....

"Hans, Fritz, Kurt, Karl, Michael and Wilhelm; it went for quite a long
time before they grew suspicious....

"You once wrote that all fighting ought to be done nowadays by metal
soldiers. I perceive, my dear Daddy, that all real fighting is...."

Section 11

Not all Hugh's letters were concerned with these grim technicalities. It
was not always that news and gossip came along; it was rare that a young
man with a commission would condescend to talk shop to two young men
without one; there were few newspapers and fewer maps, and even in
France and within sound of guns, Hugh could presently find warfare
almost as much a bore as it had been at times in England. But his
criticism of military methods died away. "Things are done better out
here," he remarked, and "We're nearer reality here. I begin to respect
my Captain. Who is developing a sense of locality. Happily for our
prospects." And in another place he speculated in an oddly
characteristic manner whether he was getting used to the army way,
whether he was beginning to see the sense of the army way, or whether
it really was that the army way braced up nearer and nearer to
efficiency as it got nearer to the enemy. "And here one hasn't the
haunting feeling that war is after all an hallucination. It's already
common sense and the business of life....

"In England I always had a sneaking idea that I had 'dressed up' in my
uniform....

"I never dreamt before I came here how much war is a business of waiting
about and going throu