“Of course we’re going to A Battery. We have to lay a wire from headquarters to their observing station.”
“Then why haven’t we brought a guide, sir?”
“What do we want a guide for? I was halfway there myself yesterday evening. I have a good general idea where the place is. I was given details last night. Come on, Lake, we mustn’t waste time. You can’t live where we’re going after daybreak.” Those were his last words. I began to have misgivings.
The walk soon worked away any drowsiness left in me, and I found myself wishing we had been on a more peaceful errand and in a more charitable land, for the night, or the morning rather, showed us countless wonders along the way. It was warmer than I had yet known it at that hour, too warm in fact for the hills we must scramble up; and the stars in rows and rows looked down on us with their unreadable eyes. One might look right into the heavens until one blinked and turned away, and one would discover still more distant golden worlds watching and watching and giving no sign.
The little winds which met us ran in and out of the bushes, flip-flapping the smaller leaves and just stirring the larger; and the scents of the few spring flowers, which had already opened their faces to the world, floated down from somewhere or other with a strength and sweetness the day never left them. The very pebbles seemed to scatter musically before our feet.
The dew was heavy on the bushes, and splashed my forehead and my hands with great cool drops. I caught at the leaves and rubbed my hands in them, and so had a first wash for the day. The musketry rolled on, and the lamps were a-winking in the bay, saying that on land and sea man was abroad; and I heard no sounds nor caught a movement of beast or bird of night. I looked and listened too. Yet doubtless many a keen pair of eyes gleamed at us from the roots of the bushes; but man was passing, man who had come in his hordes and had made the solitude unholy. The night called with stars and dew and silence; but we pushed on to prepare fresh destruction.
We came to a steep and narrow gully which turned at right angles from the path. “This is the shortest way to the old position of A Battery, sir,” I said.
“Well, lead the way, Lake.”
“But you said they had moved, sir.”
“Go on, Lake, lead the way; it will bring us somewhere near them. One way is as good as another.”