At the top of the incline, between the trees, stood a little white toll-house. From it, emerged a man in khaki, holding up his hand. “What’s the matter?” asked Peter. “They’re shelling the road, sir. I should wait a little, if I were you. It’s big stuff.” Peter dismounted; surveyed the country. In front of him the road dipped to a level-crossing; rose again. In the hollow, stood a red-and-yellow château, forlorn among dank gardens. Along the railway, to the left of the road, showed a line of dug-outs—gigantic molehills, brown and shapeless. “Seems safe enough,” he said to his groom: but even as he spoke, there came the ominous whistle, the double crash of a five-nine shell, the black spattered fountain of it among the trees on the crest in front. Hell for leather through the spattered fountain, galloped a heavy two-horse waggon, driver lashing frantically from his seat. The waggon bounded across the railway, up the slope into safety. . . . By now, a little crowd had congested round the toll-house. Peter heard the men talking. Said one:— “Funny? I don’t call it funny. How long have you been out? Two months. I thought so. I’ve had over a year of it. You wait till you’ve seen a bit more. Funny indeed.” They waited half-an-hour, as civilians wait for it to stop raining; trotted on up the slope. Now they could see the shattered roofs of Ypres. At that distance, it still looked like a city. Only as they came to it, was its nakedness, the ruin and desolation of the place, apparent. The huge red bulk of the Asylum turned, as they approached, to a gutted skeleton of a building; and beyond, the houses which they passed leered at them in drunken burlesque, shameless. Here, a made bed lurched half out of a shattered window; there, shells had ripped away the whole front of a dwelling, exposing—as a lewd woman exposes herself—all the petty secrets of what had once been a home. Left they swung, past the chipped and bulging Water Tower, past more ruins of villadom, into a bare tree-lined road; right again. “Colonel doesn’t like the horses to come further than this by daylight, sir” warned Jelks. “Very well.” Peter dismounted. “Which way do I go?” “Just up to that bridge, sir. Then, left along the canal bank. You’ll see the Lock-House just in front of you.” . . . Peter found the Weasel, reading his _Times_ by the light of their one oil lamp (it was just lunch-time) in a low, timber-shored dug-out which one approached down greasy steps, along duck-boards laid just above the water-level of a muddy creek. “Hallo,” said the Weasel. “So you’ve turned up at last, have you? Jolly place this. What?” “A trifle cramped, sir,” laughed Peter; and began to explain his overdueness.