and barbed wire
wriggling like snake-skeletons across dreary fields.

We got out of our cars, and went into the trenches, thinking thoughts
unspeakable. Long ago as the Germans had vanished, and every corner had
been searched, our officer warned us not to pick up "souvenirs." Some
infernal machine might have been missed in the search and nothing was to
be trusted--no, not even a bit of innocent-looking lead pencil.

They were trenches made to live in, these! They had been walled with
stones from ruined farmhouses. The "dug-outs" were super-dug-outs. We
saw concealed cupolas for machine-guns, and "_les officiers boches_" had
had a neat system of douches.

There was no need to worry that Brian might stumble or fall in the
slippery labyrinths we travelled, for he had Dierdre O'Farrell as guide.
I'm afraid I knew what it was to be jealous: and this new gnawing pain
is perhaps meant to be one of my punishments. Of course it's no more
than I deserve. But that Brian should be chosen as the instrument, all
unknowingly, and happily--that _hurts_!

It was just as we were close to Compiegne, not twenty minutes (in motor
talk) outside the town, that the "accident" happened.

CHAPTER XXII

At first it seemed an ordinary, commonplace accident. A loud report like
a pistol shot: a flat tire down on our car: that was all.

We stopped, and the little taxi-cab, tagging on behind like a small dog
after a big one, halted in sympathy. Julian O'Farrell jumped out to help
Morel, our one-legged chauffeur, as he always does if anything happens,
just to remind the Becketts how kind and indispensable he is. We knew
that we should be hung up for a good twenty minutes, so the whole party,
with the exception of Mother Beckett and me, deserted the cars. Brian
was with Dierdre. He had no need of his sister; so I was free to stop
with the little old lady, who whispered in my ear that she was tired.

Father Beckett and Julian watched Morel, giving him a word or a hand now
and then. Dierdre and Brian sauntered away, deep in argument over Irish
politics (it's come to that between them: and Dierdre actually _listens_
to Brian!). Mother Beckett drifted into talk of Jim, as she loves to do
with me, and I wandered, hand in hand with her, back into his childhood.
Blue dusk was falling like a rain of dead violets--just that peculiar,
faded blue; and as I was absorbed in the tale of a nursery fire (Jim, at
six, playing the hero) I had no eyes for