Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/249

Rh because the Hun airmen can't see us and disturb our luncheon."

He distributed sandwiches. Lamenting the absence of a corkscrew, he knocked the neck from a water bottle with some skill.

"Isn't much healthier around here than it was in Arras. Have some of this cold ham? This was a kitchen garden once. There was murderous fighting here less than a year ago."

As we ate, Williams' foresight was justified, for we heard the whirring of aeroplanes and, from beyond the hill, the booming of guns.

After luncheon we lounged in the grass, smoking. We wondered, when Williams had lighted another cigarette, why he delayed.

"Of course it's pleasant here.—" the foreign office man began. Williams glanced at his watch.

"I'm waiting," he said, "to see if the Huns are going to give us a strafing. They amuse themselves by dropping shells on this empty hill every now and then."

But, although the firing became general, no shells, as far as we could tell, exploded near us. So, bent like a party of scouts, we went through a fringe of bushes and around a ruined tower which already had the sentimental interest of a mediæval survival. We walked through a house which