ndy.

Now I was still in the mood of reckless bravado which I had got from
bagging the car. I did not realize how thin our story was, and how
easily Rasta might have a big graft at headquarters. If I had, I would
have shot out the German lieutenant long before we got to Erzerum, and
found some way of getting mixed up in the ruck of the population.
Hussin could have helped me to that. I was getting so confident since
our interview with Posselt that I thought I could bluff the whole
outfit.

But my main business that afternoon was pure nonsense. I was trying to
find my little hill. At every turn of the road I expected to see the
_castrol_ before us. You must know that ever since I could stand I
have been crazy about high mountains. My father took me to Basutoland
when I was a boy, and I reckon I have scrambled over almost every bit
of upland south of the Zambesi, from the Hottentots Holland to the
Zoutpansberg, and from the ugly yellow kopjes of Damaraland to the
noble cliffs of Mont aux Sources. One of the things I had looked
forward to in coming home was the chance of climbing the Alps. But now
I was among peaks that I fancied were bigger than the Alps, and I could
hardly keep my eyes on the road. I was pretty certain that my
_castrol_ was among them, for that dream had taken an almighty hold on
my mind. Funnily enough, I was ceasing to think it a place of evil
omen, for one soon forgets the atmosphere of nightmare. But I was
convinced that it was a thing I was destined to see, and to see pretty
soon.

Darkness fell when we were some miles short of the city, and the last
part was difficult driving. On both sides of the road transport and
engineers' stores were parked, and some of it strayed into the highway.
I noticed lots of small details--machine-gun detachments, signalling
parties, squads of stretcher-bearers--which mean the fringe of an army,
and as soon as the night began the white fingers of searchlights began
to grope in the skies.

And then, above the hum of the roadside, rose the voice of the great
guns. The shells were bursting four or five miles away, and the guns
must have been as many more distant. But in that upland pocket of
plain in the frosty night they sounded most intimately near. They kept
up their solemn litany, with a minute's interval between each--no
_rafale_ which rumbles like a drum, but the steady persistence of
artillery exactly ranged on a target. I judged they must be