park," said the French artillery officer.
"We've done a lot for it since the owner left. I hope he'll
appreciate it when he comes back."

The car traversed a winding drive through woods, between banks
embellished with little chalets of a rustic nature. At first,
the chalets stood their full height above ground, suggesting
tea-gardens in England. Further on they sank into the earth
till, at the top of the ascent, only their solid brown roofs
showed. Torn branches drooping across the driveway, with here
and there a scorched patch of undergrowth, explained the
reason of their modesty.

The chateau that commanded these glories of forest and park
sat boldly on a terrace. There was nothing wrong with it
except, if one looked closely, a few scratches or dints on its
white stone walls, or a neatly drilled hole under a flight of
steps. One such hole ended in an unexploded shell. "Yes,"
said the officer. "They arrive here occasionally."

Something bellowed across the folds of the wooded hills;
something grunted in reply. Something passed overhead,
querulously but not without dignity. Two clear fresh barks
joined the chorus, and a man moved lazily in the direction of
the guns.

"Well. Suppose we come and look at things a little," said the
commanding officer.

AN OBSERVATION POST

There was a specimen tree--a tree worthy of such a park--the
sort of tree visitors are always taken to admire. A ladder
ran up it to a platform. What little wind there was swayed
the tall top, and the ladder creaked like a ship's gangway. A
telephone bell tinkled 50 foot overhead. Two invisible guns
spoke fervently for half a minute, and broke off like terriers
choked on a leash. We climbed till the topmost platform
swayed sicklily beneath us. Here one found a rustic shelter,
always of the tea-garden pattern, a table, a map, and a little
window wreathed with living branches that gave one the first
view of the Devil and all his works. It was a stretch of open
country, with a few sticks like old tooth-brushes which had
once been trees round a farm. The rest was yellow grass,
barren to all appearance as the veldt.

"The grass is yellow because they have used gas here," said an
officer. "Their trenches are------. You can see for
yourself."

The guns in the woods began again. They seemed to have no
relation to the regularly spaced bursts of smoke along a
little smear in the desert earth two thousand yards away--no
connecti