The Highlander began to argue with him, and I lost interest in the talk.  But one phrase brought me to attention.  ’I’ll give you the name of the darned place, and next time you’re around you can do a bit of prospecting for yourself.  It’s called the Chateau of Eaucourt Sainte-Anne, about seven kilometres from Douvecourt.  If I was purchasing real estate in this country I guess I’d give that location a miss.’

After that I had a grim month, what with the finish of Third Ypres and the hustles to Cambrai.  By the middle of December we had shaken down a bit, but the line my division held was not of our choosing, and we had to keep a wary eye on the Boche doings.  It was a weary job, and I had no time to think of anything but the military kind of intelligence —­fixing the units against us from prisoners’ stories, organizing small raids, and keeping the Royal Flying Corps busy.  I was keen about the last, and I made several trips myself over the lines with Archie Roylance, who had got his heart’s desire and by good luck belonged to the squadron just behind me.  I said as little as possible about this, for G.H.Q. did not encourage divisional generals to practise such methods, though there was one famous army commander who made a hobby of them.  It was on one of these trips that an incident occurred which brought my spell of waiting on the bigger game to an end.

One dull December day, just after luncheon, Archie and I set out to reconnoitre.  You know the way that fogs in Picardy seem suddenly to reek out of the ground and envelop the slopes like a shawl.  That was our luck this time.  We had crossed the lines, flying very high, and received the usual salute of Hun Archies.  After a mile or two the ground seemed to climb up to us, though we hadn’t descended, and presently we were in the heart of a cold, clinging mist.  We dived for several thousand feet, but the confounded thing grew thicker and no sort of landmark could be found anywhere.  I thought if we went on at this rate we should hit a tree or a church steeple and be easy fruit for the enemy.

The same thought must have been in Archie’s mind, for he climbed again.  We got into a mortally cold zone, but the air was no clearer.  Thereupon he decided to head for home, and passed me word to work out a compass course on the map.  That was easier said than done, but I had a rough notion of the rate we had travelled since we had crossed the lines and I knew our original direction, so I did the best I could.  On we went for a bit, and then I began to get doubtful.  So did Archie.  We dropped low down, but we could hear none of the row that’s always going on for a mile on each side of the lines.  The world was very eerie and deadly still, so still that Archie and I could talk through the speaking-tube.

’We’ve mislaid this blamed battle,’he shouted.

‘I think your rotten old compass has soured on us,’ I replied.

We decided that it wouldn’t do to change direction, so we held on the same course.  I was getting as nervous as a kitten, chiefly owing to the silence.  It’s not what you expect in the middle of a battle-field . . .  I looked at the compass carefully and saw that it was really crocked.  Archie must have damaged it on a former flight and forgotten to have it changed.