Almond, Wild Almond

A fiercer blast than before pounded at the windows of the Intendance de la Marine at Dunkirk, and a vicious puff of black smoke came volleying out between the impassive caryatids of the fireplace. "Forty thousand devils!" exclaimed Lieutenant the Vicomte Marie-Cyprien d'Ornières de Lancize, as he sprang back, amid some derisive laughter from the other end of the room, and, whipping forth his pocket-handkerchief, clapped it for a second or so to his nose. Out of range of the odious discharge from the chimney, he next made a movement as if to flick his boots, those long cavalry boots which came halfway up his thighs, but cut the action short, remembering that the boots in question, usually so immaculate, were already spattered with mud, and sticky with sea-water nearly to their tops.