The battery was disappointed, but not unduly so. They knew what was
the matter; a couple of hours' work should give them the range, and
then--
But, when evening came and the tower still stood untouched, 0000th
Battery began to be worried indeed. A little more of this and
they might as well blow themselves up. They would be disgraced, a
laughing-stock to the whole Front. After hopeless arguments and bitter
recriminations they turned in with the intention of beginning again
bright and early in one last stupendous effort.
Great and shattering was their surprise when the dawn showed them no
tower at all, nothing but a heap of rubble in the midst of desolation.
The hated O.P. had disappeared in the night.
0000th Battery rubbed its eyes and wild surmise ran from man to man.
"An unexploded shell must 'ave gorn orf in the night."
"A mine may 'ave bin laid under 'er, and somethink's touched it off,
like."
But the real explanation, stranger still, was supplied later by a
letter dropped from a Taube flying over the Battery's position.
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