Still higher up, on a narrow path among the trees, stood a priest and three or four officers. They watched the battle and claimed the great bursts of smoke for one side or the other, at the same time as they kept an eye on the flickering aeroplane. "Ours," they said, half under their breath. "Theirs." "No, not ours that one—theirs! . . . That fool is banking too steep . . . That's Boche shrapnel. They always burst it high. That's our big gun behind that outer hill . . . He'll drop his machine in the street if he doesn't take care . . . There goes a trench-sweeper. Those last two were theirs, but that"—it was a full roar —"was ours."
BEHIND THE GERMAN LINES
The valley held and increased the sounds till they seemed to hit our hillside like a sea.
A change of light showed a village, exquisitely pencilled atop of a hill, with reddish haze at its feet.
"What is that place?" I asked.
The priest replied in a voice as deep as an organ: "That is Saint——— It is in the Boche lines. Its condition is pitiable."
The thunders and the smokes rolled up and diminished and renewed themselves, but the small children romped up and down the old stone steps; the beginner's aeroplane unsteadily chased its own shadow over the fields; and the soldiers in billet asked the band for their favourite tunes.
Said the lieutenant of local Guards as the cars went on:
"She—play—Tipperary."
And she did—to an accompaniment of heavy pieces in the hills, which followed us into a town all ringed with enormous searchlights, French and Boche together, scowling at each other beneath the stars.
. . . .