d, he woke with a mighty thirst, and, since he wasn't
going to get cholera by drinking the local water in his bedroom, he
started out for the room they messed in to try to pick up a
whisky-and-soda. He couldn't find it, though he knew the road like his
own name. He admitted he might have taken a wrong turning, but he
didn't think so. Anyway he landed in a passage which he had never seen
before, and, since he had no candle, he tried to retrace his steps.
Again he went wrong, and groped on till he saw a faint light which he
thought must be the room of the G.S.O., a good fellow and a friend of
his. So he barged in, and found a big, dim salon with two figures in it
and a lamp burning between them, and a queer, unpleasant smell about.
He took a step forward, and then he saw that the figures had no faces.
That fairly loosened his joints with fear, and he gave a cry. One of
the two ran towards him, the lamp went out, and the sickly scent caught
suddenly at his throat. After that he knew nothing till he awoke in his
own bed next morning with a splitting headache. He said he got the
General's permission and went over all the unoccupied part of the
house, but he couldn't find the room. Dust lay thick on everything, and
there was no sign of recent human presence.
I give the story as he told it in his drawling voice. 'I reckon that
was the genuine article in ghosts. You don't believe me and conclude I
was drunk? I wasn't. There isn't any drink concocted yet that could lay
me out like that. I just struck a crack in the old universe and pushed
my head outside. It may happen to you boys any day.'
The Highlander began to argue with him, and I lost interest in the
talk. But one phrase brought me to attention. 'I'll give you the name
of the darned place, and next time you're around you can do a bit of
prospecting for yourself. It's called the Chateau of Eaucourt
Sainte-Anne, about seven kilometres from Douvecourt. If I was
purchasing real estate in this country I guess I'd give that location a
miss.'
After that I had a grim month, what with the finish of Third Ypres and
the hustles to Cambrai. By the middle of December we had shaken down a
bit, but the line my division held was not of our choosing, and we had
to keep a wary eye on the Boche doings. It was a weary job, and I had
no time to think of anything but the military kind of
intelligence--fixing the units against us from prisoners' stories,
organizing small raids, and keeping
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