overhead and
the attention of one of our anti-aircraft guns was immediately diverted
to the bird. The cookhouse had formerly been a French dressing station,
dismantled by the fire of those devils that know no law of God or man,
composed of three huts in a row made of half-inch board. While eating,
one of our own shells, a shrapnel, that had been sent up at a German
stork and did not explode, dropped squarely into the middle of the
cookhouse, frightened the cook out of his wits and hit the dixies,
scattering them around our feet. "Stand to!" and we made our way
carefully, keeping out of sight as much as possible from the watching
bird overhead.

When I got to the gun the shell fire was commencing to get dangerously
close. "By God, there must be somebody giving our battery away," said
Munsey. A number of our men had been wounded at this time and the
airplane still buzzing above, made it impossible for us to fire, and we
got a "Stand down!"

"Come on over," Munsey proposed, "and we'll see what's in that building
where I saw the light." We found a family of civilians living there and
they were at once very solicitous about giving us coffee. "Never mind
the coffee," said Munsey; "we have come to examine the house." The old
man seemed quite willing to have us do so and pointed the way upstairs,
starting himself to go out the door. Munsey grabbed him by the
arm,--"Come along and show us the way." He indicated that we could find
the way ourselves, but my mate was insistent and he forced the old man
along and upstairs we went.

At first nothing resulted from our thorough search, but Munsey's eye
lighted on an Algerian serge lying in the corner of the room, and almost
at the same time I noticed some bricks in the chimney that seemed to be
loose. An old table in the middle of the room I pulled over to the
chimney, tugged at some of the brick that I had noticed, and the whole
thing caved in, part of a heliograph outfit falling out. The old fellow
made a dart for the door, but was peremptorily intercepted. "Damn you,
stay where you are!" I pulled out the rest of the stuff; there was a
complete heliograph apparatus, and a little red cap, such as the
Algerians wear, satisfying us both that the man doing the work used the
uniform of an Algerian.

On leaving the room, carrying the stuff with us and going down stairs,
we saw a box against the wall and I heard a funny noise from it as if it
contained something alive. I pulled it out