The car passed on again and suddenly dropped into a little protected valley. They came to a standstill before a tiny chateau, in front of which stretched what might once have been an ornamental garden, but which was now torn to pieces by gun carriages, convoy waggons, and every description of vehicle. From the top of the house stretched many wires. A sentry stood at the iron gates and passed Major Thomson after a perfunctory challenge. An office with mud-stained boots and wind-tossed hair, who looked as though he had been out all night, stood on the steps of the house and welcomed Thomson. “Hullo, Major,” he called out, “just across, eh?” “This moment,” Thomson assented. “Anything fresh?” “Nothing to speak of,” the other replied. “We’ve just had a message in that the French have been giving them a knock. We’ve had a quiet time the last two days. They’re bringing up some more Bavarians, we think.” “Do you think I could have a few words with the General?” Major Thomson asked. “Come in and have some coffee. Yes, he’ll see you, of course. He is in his own room with two of the flying men, just for the moment. I’ll let you know when you can go in.” They passed into an apartment which had once been the dining-room of the chateau, and in which a long table was laid. One or two staff officers greeted Thomson, and the man who had brought him in attended to his wants. “The General had his breakfast an hour ago,” the latter observed. “We’re pretty well forward here and we have to keep on the qui vive. We got some shells yesterday dropped within a quarter of a mile of us. I think we’re going to try and give them a push back on the left flank. I’ll go in and see about you, Thomson.” “Good fellow! You might tell them to give my chauffeur something. The destroyer that brought me over is waiting at Boulogne, and I want to be in London to-night.” One of the officers from the other side of the table, smiled queerly. “London! My God!” he muttered. “There is still a London, I suppose? Savoy and Carlton going still? Pall Mall where it was?” “And very much as it was,” Thomson assured him. “London’s wonderfully unchanged. You been out long?” “September the second,” was the cheerful reply. “I keep on getting promised a week but I can’t bring it off.” “He’s such a nut with the telephones,” the man by his side explained, helping himself to marmalade. “The General positively can’t spare him.” “Oh, chuck it!” the other exclaimed in disgust. “What about you?--the only man with an eye to a Heaven-ordained gun position, as old Wattles declared one day. We’re all living wonders, Major,” he went on, turning to Thomson, “but if I don’t get a Sole Colbert and a grill at the Savoy, and a front seat at the Alhambra, before many weeks have passed, I shall get stale--that’s what’ll happen to me.”