ted
it out to Blenkiron.

'There's the fog that's doing us. This March weather is just like
October, mist morning and evening. I wish to Heaven we could have some
good old drenching spring rain.'

Archie was discoursing of the Shark-Gladas machine.

'I've always stuck to it, for it's a marvel in its way, but it has my
heart fairly broke. The General here knows its little tricks. Don't
you, sir? Whenever things get really excitin', the engine's apt to quit
work and take a rest.'

'The whole make should be publicly burned,' I said, with gloomy
recollections.

'I wouldn't go so far, sir. The old Gladas has surprisin' merits. On
her day there's nothing like her for pace and climbing-power, and she
steers as sweet as a racin' cutter. The trouble about her is she's too
complicated. She's like some breeds of car--you want to be a mechanical
genius to understand her ... If they'd only get her a little simpler
and safer, there wouldn't be her match in the field. I'm about the only
man that has patience with her and knows her merits, but she's often
been nearly the death of me. All the same, if I were in for a big fight
against some fellow like Lensch, where it was neck or nothing, I'm
hanged if I wouldn't pick the Gladas.'

Archie laughed apologetically. 'The subject is banned for me in our
mess. I'm the old thing's only champion, and she's like a mare I used
to hunt that loved me so much she was always tryin' to chew the arm off
me. But I wish I could get her a fair trial from one of the big pilots.
I'm only in the second class myself after all.'

We were running north of St just when above the rattle of the train
rose a curious dull sound. It came from the east, and was like the low
growl of a veld thunderstorm, or a steady roll of muffled drums.

'Hark to the guns!' cried Archie. 'My aunt, there's a tidy bombardment
goin' on somewhere.'

I had been listening on and off to guns for three years. I had been
present at the big preparations before Loos and the Somme and Arras,
and I had come to accept the racket of artillery as something natural
and inevitable like rain or sunshine. But this sound chilled me with
its eeriness, I don't know why. Perhaps it was its unexpectedness, for
I was sure that the guns had not been heard in this area since before
the Marne. The noise must be travelling down the Oise valley, and I
judged there was big fighting somewhere about Chauny or La Fere. That
meant that the enemy was pressin