Sometimes they skirt a
wood or hedge, sometimes they keep under the lee of an embankment,
sometimes they proceed across the open, with the stealthy caution
of persons playing musical chairs, ready to sit down in the nearest
shell-crater the moment the music--in the form of a visitation of
"whizz-bangs"--strikes up.
It is difficult to say which kind of weather is least favourable to
this enterprise. On sunny days one's movements are visible to Boche
observers upon distant summits; while on foggy days the Boche gunners,
being able to see nothing at all, amuse themselves by generous and
unexpected contributions of shrapnel in all directions. Stormy weather
is particularly unpleasant, for the noise of the wind in the trees
makes it difficult to hear the shell approaching. Days of heavy rain
are the most desirable on the whole, for then the gunners are too
busy bailing out their gun-pits to worry their heads over adventurous
pedestrians. One learns, also, to mark down and avoid particular
danger-spots. For instance, the southeast corner of that wood, where
a reserve company are dug in, is visited by "Silent Susans" for about
five minutes each noontide: it is therefore advisable to select some
other hour for one's daily visit. (Silent Susan, by the way, is not a
desirable member of the sex. Owing to her intensely high velocity she
arrives overhead without a sound, and then bursts with a perfectly
stunning detonation and a shower of small shrapnel bullets.
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