ed clay cliffs ran up and down in steeply undulating
lines as far as they could see, and near at hand, in a wide valley
beyond the gloomy combe that leads to Salcombe Regis, they could very
plainly see the front of Sidmouth. In the east, they could look up the
wooded valley of the Axe, and, beyond the vari-coloured Haven Cliff, see
the Dorset Hills that huddled Charmouth and Bridport, and further out,
like an island in mist, the high reach of Portland Bill....

In this corner of the Common, they spent the last day of Ninian's leave.
Behind them was a great stretch of gorse in bloom, and brown bracken,
mingled with new green fronds, from which larks sprang up, singing and
soaring. They had eaten sandwiches on the Common, and in the afternoon,
had climbed down the steep side of the combe to a farm to tea, and, then
they had climbed up the combe again, and had sat in their corner,
watching the Boveyhayne trawlers blowing home; and as they sat there,
they became very quiet. In this solitude and peace, the outrage of war
seemed to have no meaning....

Ninian stirred slightly. He raised himself on his elbow and looked about
him....

"Let's go home," he said quickly, getting up as he spoke. He went to his
mother and helped her to rise, and when she was standing up, he took her
arm and drew it through his, and led her towards the village; and when
they had gone up the grassy path through the bracken, and were well on
the way home, Mary and Henry followed after them.

"Ninian feels things more than he admits," Henry whispered to her.

9

They made poor attempts at gaiety that night, and Ninian tried to make
oratory about Engineers. He divided his discourse into two parts: one
insisting that the war would be won by engineering feats; the other
insisting that it might be lost because of the contempt of most of the
military men for Engineers, which, Ninian said, was another word for
Brains. "They don't think we're gentlemen," he said. "I met a 'dug-out'
last week, and he was snorting about the Engineers ... hadn't a happorth
of brains in his skull, the ass ... and I asked him why it was that he
thought so little of them. Do you know what he said? 'Oh,' says he,
'they're always readin' books an' ... an' inventin' things!' That's the
kind of chap we've got to endure! Isn't he priceless? I very nearly told
him he ought to be embalmed ... only I thought to myself he'd think that
was the sort of remark an engineer would make. Pl