To me it was most uncomfortably genuine.
When we had stood there in the middle of the road five minutes, like a couple of idiots, with our hands aloft, freezing to death by inches, Mike's interest in the joke began to wane.

He said: "The time's up, now, aint it ?" "No, you keep still.

Do you want to take any chances with these bloody savages ?" Presently Mike said: "Now the time's up, anyway.

I'm freezing." "Well freeze.

Better freeze than carry your brains home in a basket.
Maybe the time is up, but how do we know ?--got no watch to tell by.
I mean to give them good measure.