ed thoughtfully.

"He'll say that he was thinking out a new system of communicating
trenches," he said. "He's been boring me to tears over saps and things."

Hamilton shook his head.

"Wrong, sir," he said; "that isn't the lie he'll tell. He will say that
I kept him up so late last night working at the men's pay-sheets that he
couldn't keep awake."

Bones slept on.

"He may say that it was coffee after tiffin," suggested Sanders after a
while; "he said the other day that coffee always made him sleep."

"'Swoon' was the word he used, sir," corrected Hamilton. "I don't think
he'll offer that suggestion now--the only other excuse I can think of is
that he was repeating the Bomongo irregular verbs. Bones!"

He stooped and broke off a long grass and inserted it in the right ear
of Lieutenant Tibbetts, twiddling the end delicately. Bones made a
feeble clutch at his ear, but did not open his eyes.

"Bones!" said Hamilton, and kicked him less gently. "Get up, you lazy
devil--there's an invasion."

Bones leapt to his feet and staggered a little; blinked fiercely at his
superior and saluted.

"Enemy on the left flank, sir," he reported stiffly. "Shall we have
dinner or take a taxi?"

"Wake up, Napoleon," begged Hamilton, "you're at Waterloo."

Bones blinked more slowly.

"I'm afraid I've been unconscious, dear old officer," he confessed. "The
fact is----"

"Listen to this, everybody," said Hamilton admiringly.

"The fact is, sir," said Bones, with dignity, "I fell asleep--that
beastly coffee I had after lunch, added to the fatigue of sittin' up
half the night with those jolly old accounts of yours, got the better of
me. I was sittin' down workin' out one of the dinkiest little ideas in
trenches--a sort of communicatin' trench where you needn't get wet in
the rainiest weather--when I--well, I just swooned off."

Hamilton looked disappointed.

"Weren't you doing anything with the Bomongo verbs?" he demanded.

A light came to Bones's eyes.

"By Jove, sir!" he said heartily, "that was it, of course.... The last
thing I remember was...."

"Kick that man of yours and come back to the bungalow," Hamilton
interrupted, "there's a job for you, my boy."

He walked across and stirred the second sleeper with the toe of his
boot.

Ali Abid wriggled round and sat up.

He was square of face, with a large mouth and two very big brown eyes.
He was enormously fat, but it was not fat of the flabby type. Though he
calle