The vault keeper was sent for.  It took some time to find him.

The bank official commented on the weather, which was, he considered, extremely warm.

At last the vault keeper came.  He was quite breathless.  But it seemed that, not knowing why he came, he had neglected to bring his keys.  The bank official regretted the delay.  The officers stamped about.

“It looks like a shower,” said the bank official.  “Later in the day it may be cooler.”

The officers muttered among themselves.

It took the vault keeper a long time to get his keys and return, but at last he arrived.  They went down and down, through innumerable doors that must be unlocked before them, through gratings and more steel doors.  And at last they stood in the vaults.

The German officers stared about and then turned to the Belgian official.

“The gold!” they said furiously.  “Where is the gold?”

“The gold!” said the official, much surprised.  “You wished to see the gold?  I am sorry.  You asked for the vaults and I have shown you the vaults.  The gold, of course, is in England.”

We sped on, the same flat country, the same grey fields, the same files of soldiers moving across those fields toward distant billets, the same transports and ambulances, and over all the same colourless sky.

Not very long ago some inquiring British scientist discovered that on foggy days in London the efficiency of the average clerk was cut down about fifty per cent.  One begins to wonder how much of this winter impasse is due to the weather, and what the bright and active days of early spring will bring.  Certainly the weather that day weighed on me.  It was easier to look out through the window of the car than to get out and investigate.  The penetrating cold dulled our spirits.

A great lorry had gone into the mud at the side of the road and was being dug out.  A horse neatly disembowelled lay on its back in the road, its four stark legs pointed upward.

“They have been firing at a German Taube,” said the Commandant, “and naturally what goes up must come down.”

On the way back we saw the same horse.  It was dark by that time, and some peasants had gathered round the carcass with a lantern.  The hide had been cut away and lay at one side, and the peasants were carving the animal into steaks and roasts.  For once fate had been good to them.  They would dine that night.

Everywhere here and there along the road we had passed the small sheds that sentries built to protect themselves against the wind, little huts the size of an American patrol box, built of the branches of trees and thatched all about with straw.

Now we passed one larger than the others, a shed with the roof thatched and the sides plastered with mud to keep out the cold.

The Commandant halted the car.  There was one bare little room with a wooden bench and a door.  The bench and the door had just played their part in a tragedy.