ass that we do not know which side of the
angle they will strike till the blow falls.'

'It is true,' he replied. 'But consider. For the enemy to attack
towards the Somme would be to fight over many miles of an old
battle-ground where all is still desert and every yard of which you
British know. In Champagne at a bound he might enter unbroken country.
It is a long and difficult road to Amiens, but not so long to Chilons.
Such is the view of Petain. Does it convince you?'

'The reasoning is good. Nevertheless he will strike at Amiens, and I
think he will begin today.'

He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. '_Nous verrons_. You are
obstinate, my general, like all your excellent countrymen.'

But as I left his headquarters an aide-de-camp handed him a message on
a pink slip. He read it, and turned to me with a grave face.

'You have a flair, my friend. I am glad we did not wager. This morning
at dawn there is great fighting around St Quentin. Be comforted, for
they will not pass. Your _Marechal_ will hold them.'

That was the first news I had of the battle.

At Dijon according to plan I met the others. I only just caught the
Paris train, and Blenkiron's great wrists lugged me into the carriage
when it was well in motion. There sat Peter, a docile figure in a
carefully patched old R.F.C. uniform. Wake was reading a pile of French
papers, and in a corner Mary, with her feet up on the seat, was sound
asleep.

We did not talk much, for the life of the past days had been so hectic
that we had no wish to recall it. Blenkiron's face wore an air of
satisfaction, and as he looked out at the sunny spring landscape he
hummed his only tune. Even Wake had lost his restlessness. He had on a
pair of big tortoiseshell reading glasses, and when he looked up from
his newspaper and caught my eye he smiled. Mary slept like a child,
delicately flushed, her breath scarcely stirring the collar of the
greatcoat which was folded across her throat. I remember looking with a
kind of awe at the curve of her young face and the long lashes that lay
so softly on her cheek, and wondering how I had borne the anxiety of
the last months. Wake raised his head from his reading, glanced at Mary
and then at me, and his eyes were kind, almost affectionate. He seemed
to have won peace of mind among the hills.

Only Peter was out of the picture. He was a strange, disconsolate
figure, as he shifted about to ease his leg, or gazed incuriously from
the wi