"Unless she takes hold, when there's something to take hold of it's no use."
"Stop quarreling with him, Scott," said Wharton. "That's my job, and you can't take it from me. I've set two tasks for myself, one to defeat the German army and one to change Carstairs, and I tell you confidentially, John, that I think the defeat of the German army will prove the easier of the two."
"Look how those banks of fog are rolling up," said Carstairs. "The rain is decreasing, but in a quarter of an hour we won't be able to see a thing twenty yards away."
"We shall welcome the fog," said John, who was beginning to feel now that he was on equal terms with the other two.
"So, we should," said Carstairs, "but does fog conduct sound well?"
"I don't know," replied John. "Why?"
"Because I think I hear a noise a long distance to the right. It has a rolling, grinding quality, but that doesn't help me to tell what makes it."
The three stopped, and with all their senses alert listened. Both John and Wharton heard the sound, but they were unable to tell its nature. The fog meanwhile was closing in, heavy and almost impenetrable.
"I think," said John, "we ought to see what it is. The thing is projecting itself squarely across our path. We've got a mission, but the more news we take the better."
Wharton and Carstairs agreed with him, and finding a low place in the hedge that ran beside the road they forced their way through it. They were remounted now, and the rest had made the horses fit for either a fight or a race.