Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/220

186 “At any rate," the general proposed, "these fellows have been strafed so hard to-day I want you to take them out to a battery and give them the pleasure of seeing some strafing back."

"Run your cars down the road and back of that shed," the colonel suggested.

"I'll have to be getting home," the general said.

The discontent of the staff officers increased, probably at the thought of his returning on that road, but the general smiled, saying good-bye easily. We saw him go with a real regret. We listened anxiously for a fresh burst of firing from that direction until we knew he had had time to reach his headquarters.

The colonel got his walking stick and led us around the house.

“You don't mind crossing a field?"

Publicly our route was a matter of indifference, but I think we had all had enough of fields. In the open country the twin balloons were like the eyes of an angry god. Certainly it was all of the mile the colonel had mentioned to a farm which showed amazingly few scars. Within a stone's throw of it the battery nestled in a scanty grove of trees—a row of log and sand bag redoubts which to us appeared to offer no real protection from scouts in aeroplanes. But every battery I saw, every huge gun brought up for a bombard-