Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/170

140 with jerky motions signalled the other car back. All at once there was a noticeable tenseness about the uniformed men with us. For some distance we scurried the way we had come. We took a turn around a smashed farm house in the direction of the trenches. Beyond such signs of wreckage, beyond the rising clamour of the guns, there was something about that flat country, basking in the sun, that mcant danger. We were in the hcart of a vast army, yet, except for ourselves, there was no human being to be seen. It occurred to you then—an interminable uproar in an empty place! The ground scemed to writhe beneath it.

The devastated landscape had an earthquake appearance at which the bland sun mocked. I shouted, asking why we had made that startled turn, why we had chosen this new road. Because," the brigade officer answered, "the Huns are strafing the road I had planned to take. I thought when we started their sausage looked a little close. This seemed safer."

But was it? It was obvious that the observers in the balloon, if they looked our way, could see us crossing the level fields. But our dash was brief. We drew up at a crossroads, marked by the unsual blasted house. An officer and a soldier sprang from behind the ruin, their gas masks striking against their hips as they hurried towards