They had barely settled down midstream, and he was in
the act of extracting a hook from the Colonel's finger with his
jack-knife, when the punt broke from its moorings and carried them
half-a-mile downstream. It was uncanny how the craft had contrived to
navigate four bends without giving an opportunity of landing. In the
afternoon they had fished from the bank, and the Colonel had fallen
asleep while the Adjutant mounted guard. The Adjutant protested that
it was not his fault that the float suddenly disappeared, or that the
Colonel, on being vigorously awakened by him, struck so violently
at what proved to be a dead branch that he lost his footing and
tobogganned heavily into the river, and was compelled to waste three
hours in the neighbouring hostelry taking precautions against a chill.
At breakfast next morning the Colonel intimated that on this his last
day he would go unaccompanied. With one eye on the Major and the other
on the Adjutant, he passed a few remarks on the _finesse_ of fishing.
The element of surprise should be the basis of attack. Precision and
absolute secrecy in the carrying out of preliminary operations was
vital. Every trick and every device of camouflage should be brought
into play. There should be no violent preliminary bombardment of
ground-bait to alarm the hostile forces, but the sector should be
unostentatiously registered on the preceding night.
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