He walked at a good steady pace; and hummed a tune under his breath, trying thus to keep down any disposition to shiver. His eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness could now take stock of the roadway, the grassy verge and the ditch on either side. The poplars rose high and became one with the sombre darkness of the sky. Shadows lurked in the ditches, bundled together and plotting some mischief towards him. His imagination conceived ghastly pictures of men lying flat in the shadows staring at the heavens with glazed, unseeing eyes, their throats cut across from ear to ear.... What a row his footsteps created! The noise he kicked up must have echoed across the world. He hummed a tune viciously and stared intensely into the remoter darkness of the unknown. The breeze whimpered amidst the poplar leaves and its sigh was carried ever so far away. Again a shadow swept up from the fields and took shape on the road in front. Fitzgerald advanced towards it quickly and collided with a solid mass, a living form. "I am sorry," he muttered. "Good evening," said a voice with a queer strange note in it. "You are out late." "I am going back to my billet now," Fitzgerald said, and asked: "Where are you going?" There was a moment's hesitation before the stranger replied, saying: "I'm going to the next village." Fitzgerald could now see that the man was dressed as an English soldier in a khaki uniform, a rifle over his shoulder and a bandolier round his chest. Germans often disguise themselves as British soldiers, Jean Lacroix said.... "What do you belong to?" Fitzgerald asked, stepping off after the momentary halt. The man accompanied him. "The Army Service Corps," he answered readily enough, but his accent struck Fitzgerald as being strangely unfamiliar; in his low guttural tones there was something foreign. English could not have been his mother tongue. For a while there was silence, but suddenly as if overcome by a sense of embarrassment due to the silence, the man spoke. "Have you been long in France?" he asked. "I have been here for some time," Fitzgerald answered. "What is your regiment?" Being warned against giving any information to strangers, Fitzgerald gave an evasive reply. "Oh, a line regiment," he said. The man chuckled. "Looks like it," he said. "Are you billeted here?" "I'm billeted at...." Fitzgerald stopped and asked "Where are you billeted?" "Oh, at the next village," said the man. "A number of the A.S.C. are billeted there." Again a long silence. Their boots crunched angrily on the roadway and ahead the lights of war lit up the horizon. "They're fighting like hell up there," said the man. "There's a big battle on now. Has your regiment been called up?" As he spoke he pulled his rifle forward across his chest and fumbled with the bolt. Fitzgerald stared at him fascinated, his nerves strained to an acute pitch. "What are you doing with your rifle?" he asked.