“Gad—­she’s immense!  We must invite her to tea to-morrow,” he said to me in a whisper that shook the Nissen hut to its foundations.  Slingswivel was no vocal lightweight.  Those people in Thanet and Kent who used to write to the papers saying they could hear the guns in the Vimy Ridge and Messines offensives were wrong.  What they really heard was Major Slingswivel at Nullepart expostulating with his partner for declaring clubs on a no-trump hand.

“Very well,” I answered sulkily.  It wasn’t the first time the Major had been captivated by ladies with Southern syncopated tastes, and I knew I should be expected to complete the party with the other lady member of the troupe, Miss Dulcie Demiton, and listen to the old boy making very small talk in a very large voice.  I could see myself balancing a teacup and trying to get in a word here and there through the barrage.

Still, there was no getting out of it, and next afternoon found our quartette nibbling petits gateaux in the only patisserie in the village.  The Major was in fine fettle as the war-worn old veteran, and Gwennie and Dulcie spurred him on with open and undisguised admiration.

“Now I’m in France,” gushed Gwennie, “I want to see everything—­where the trenches were and where you fought your terrible battles.”

“Delighted to show you,” said Slingswivel, bursting with pride at being taken for a combatant officer.  “How about to-morrow?”

“Just lovely,” cooed Gwennie.  “We’re showing at Petiteville in the evening, but we shan’t be starting before lunch.”

“That gives us all morning,” said the Major enthusiastically.  “Miss Gwennie, Miss Dulcie, Spenlow, we will parade to-morrow at 9.30.”

I couldn’t understand it.  Naturally Gwennie, with her mind constantly set on Alabama, couldn’t be expected to be up in war geography, but the Major knew jolly well that all the battles within reasonable distance of Nullepart had been fought out with chits and indents.  I put it to him that it wasn’t likely country for war thrills.

“Leave it to me,” he said confidently.

So I left it, and when we paraded next morning where do you think the wily old bird led us?  Why, to the old training ground on the edge of the camp, where the R.E.’s used to lay out beautifully revetted geometrical trenches as models of what we were supposed to imitate in the front line between hates.  Having been neglected since the Armistice they had caved in a bit and sagged round the corners till they were a very passable imitation of the crump-battered thing.