The stretcher party drew little or no fire, simply and solely because
just one second after those first shots and loud shouts had declared
the game up, a figure sprang from the grass fifty yards along the
trench and twice as far out in the open, sprang up and ran out, and
stood in the glare of light, the baggy scarlet breeches and gray shirt
making a flaring mark that no eye, called suddenly to see, could miss,
that no rifle brought sliding through the loophole and searching for a
target could fail to mark. The bullets began to patter about 'Enery
Irving's feet, to whine and whimper and buzz about his ears. And
'Enery--this was where the trench, despite themselves, laughed--'Enery
placed his hand on his heart, swept off his cap in a magnificent arm's
length gesture, and bowed low; then swiftly he rose upright, struck an
attitude that would have graced the hero of the highest class Adelphi
drama, and in a shrill voice that rang clear above the hammering tumult
of the rifles, screamed "Veev la France! A baa la Bosh!" The rifles by
this time were pelting a storm of lead at him, and now that the haste
and flurry of the urgent call had passed and the shooters had steadied
to their task, the storm was perilously close. 'Enery stayed a moment
even then to spread his hands and raise his shoulders ear-high in a
magnificent stage shrug; but a bullet snatched the cap from his head,
and 'Enery ducked hastily, turned, and ran his hardest, with the
bullets snapping at his heels.

Back in the trench a frantic French captain was raving at the
telephone, whirling the handle round, screaming for "Fire, fire, fire!"

Private Flannigan looked over his shoulder at him, "Mong capitaine," he
said, "you ought, you reely ought, to ring up your telephone; turn the
handle round an' say something."