nonsense!”“You’ll see, sir. They carry a kind of box, sir, that shoots fire and strikes you dead.”“What d’ye mean—a gun?”“No, sir,” and the artilleryman began a vivid account of the Heat-Ray. Halfway through, the lieutenant interrupted him and looked up at me. I was still standing on the bank by the side of the road.“It’s perfectly true,” I said.“Well,” said the lieutenant, “I suppose it’s my business to see it too. Look here”—to the artilleryman—“we’re detailed here clearing people out of their houses. You’d better go along and report yourself to Brigadier-General Marvin, and tell him all you know. He’s at Weybridge. Know the way?”“I do,” I said; and he turned his horse southward again. 

“Half a mile, you say?” said he. 

“At most,” I answered, and pointed over the treetops southward. He thanked me and rode on, and we saw them no more. 

Farther along we came upon a group of three women and two children in the road, busy clearing out a labourer’s cottage. They had got hold of a little hand truck, and were piling it up with unclean-looking bundles and shabby furniture. They were all too assiduously engaged to talk to us as we passed. 

By Byfleet station we emerged from the pine trees, and found the country calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight. We were far beyond the range of the Heat-Ray there, and had it not been for the silent desertion of some of the houses, the stirring movement of packing in others, and the knot of soldiers standing on the bridge over the railway and staring down the line towards Woking, the day would have seemed very like any other Sunday. 

Several farm waggons and carts were moving creakily along the road to Addlestone, and suddenly through the gate of a field we saw, across a stretch of flat meadow, six twelve-pounders standing neatly at equal distances pointing towards Woking. The gunners stood by the guns waiting, and the ammunition waggons were at a business-like distance. The men stood almost as if under inspection. 

“That’s good!” said I. “They will get one fair shot, at any rate.” 

The artilleryman hesitated at the gate. 

“I shall go on,” he said. 

Farther on towards Weybridge, just over the bridge, there were a number of men in white fatigue jackets throwing up a long rampart, and more guns behind. 

 Prev. P 39/138 next