Also to add to the
gaiety of indecent minds there is a complete outfit of ladies'
clothing in a neighboring dugout. Funny fellows those German officers.
Take a pew, won't you? and have a drink. Orderly!"
He shouted for his man and ordered a further supply of German soda-
water.
We drank to the confusion of the enemy, in his own brandy and soda-
water, out of his own mugs, sitting on his own chairs at his own
table, and "dear old Charlie," who was a little etoile, as afterward I
became, with a sense of deep satisfaction (the noise of shells seemed
more remote), discoursed on war, which he hated, German psychology,
trench-mortar barrages (they had simply blown the Boche out of
Gommecourt), and his particular fancy stunt of stealing a march on the
infantry, who, said Captain Lowndes, are "laps behind." Other officers
crowded into the dugout. One of them said: "You must come round to
mine. It's a blasted palace," and I went round later and he told me on
the way that he had escaped so often from shell-bursts that he thought
the average of luck was up and he was bound to get "done in" before
long.
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