It might have been in a different world from Ypres and Poperinghe--instead of only twenty miles to the south. Gone were the flat, cultivated fields; great slag-heaps and smoking chimneys were everywhere. And in spite of the fact that active operations were in progress, there seemed to be no more gunning than the normal daily contribution at Lizerne, Boesinge, and Jim's old friend and first love, Hooge. Aeroplanes, too, seemed scarcer. True, one morning, standing in the road outside the cafe, he saw for the first time a fleet of 'planes starting out on a raid. Now one and then another would disappear behind a fleecy white cloud, only to reappear a few moments later glinting in the rays of the morning sun, until at length the whole fleet, in dressing and order like a flight of geese, their wings tipped with fire, moved over the blue vault of heaven. The drone of their engines came faintly from a great height, until, as if at some spoken word from the leader, the whole swung half-right and vanished into a bank of clouds. CHAPTER IX NO ANSWER But the grey period for Jim was drawing to a close. To-day it's the man over the road that tops the bill; to-morrow it's you, as I said before: and a change of caste was imminent in our friend's performance. One does not seek these things--they occur; and then they're over, and one waits for the next. There is no programme laid down, no book of the words printed. Things just happen--sometimes they lead to a near acquaintance with iodine, and a kind woman in a grey dress who takes your temperature and washes your face; and at others to a dinner with much good wine where the laughter is merry and the revelry great. Of course there are many other alternatives: you may never reach the hospital--you may never get the dinner; you may get a cold in the nose, and go to the Riviera--or you may get a bad corn and get blood-poisoning from using a rusty jack knife to operate. The caprice of the spirit of Topsy Turvy is quite wonderful. For instance, on the very morning that the Staff Officer came back to his job, and Jim returned to his battalion, his company commander asked him to go to a general bomb store in a house just up the road, and see that the men who were working there were getting on all right. The regiment was for the support trenches that night, and preparing bombs was the order of the day. Just as he started to go, a message arrived that the C.O. wished to see him. So the company commander went instead; and entered the building just as a German shell came in by another door. By all known laws a man going over Niagara in an open tub would not willingly have changed places with him; an 8-inch shell exploding in the same room with you is apt to be a decisive moment in your career.