Suddenly, for a brief moment, against the dimly illuminated scrap of horizon, he descries a human form, clad in a kilt, advancing stealthily....
"_Number one Platoon_--_at the enemy in front_--_rapid fire_!"
He is just in time. There comes an overwrought roar of musketry all down the line of trenches. Simultaneously, a solid wall of men rises out of the earth not fifty yards away, and makes for the trenches with a long-drawn battle yell.
Make-believe has its thrills as well as the genuine article.
And so home to bed. M'Snape duly became a lance-corporal, while Dunshie resigned his post as a scout and returned to duty with the company.
Under this designation it is convenient to lump the whole heavenly host which at present orders our goings and shapes our ends. It includes--
--and other more local and immediate homes of mystery.
The Olympus which controls the destinies of "K(1)" differs in many respects from the Olympus of antiquity, but its celestial inhabitants appear to have at least two points in common with the original body--namely, a childish delight in upsetting one another's arrangements, and an untimely sense of humour when dealing with mortals.
So far as our researches have gone, we have been able to classify Olympus, roughly, into three departments--
(1) Round Game Department (including Dockets, Indents, and all official correspondence).
The outstanding feature of the Round Game Department is its craving for irrelevant information and its passion for detail. "Open your hearts to us," say the officials of the Department; "unburden your souls; keep nothing from us--and you will find us most accommodating. But stand on your dignity; decline to particularise; hold back one irrelevant detail--and it will go hard with you! Listen, and we will explain the rules of the game. Think of something you want immediately--say the command of a brigade, or a couple of washers for the lock of a machine-gun--and apply to us. The application must be made in writing, upon the Army Form provided for the purpose, and in triplicate. _And_--you must put in all the details you can possibly think of."
For instance, in the case of the machine-gun washers--by the way, in applying for them, you must call them _Gun, Machine, Light Vickers, Washers for lock of, two_. That is the way we always talk at the Ordnance Office. An Ordnance officer refers to his wife's mother as _Law, Mother-in-, one_--you should state when the old washers were lost, and by whom; also why they were lost, and where they are now. Then write a short history of the machine-gun from which they were lost, giving date and place of birth, together with, a statement of the exact number of rounds which it has fired--a machine-gun fires about five hundred rounds a minute--adding the name and military record of the pack-animal which usually carries it. When you have filled up this document you forward it to the proper quarter and await results.