Roads marched
across the landscape, but they were empty roads. It was as though life had
vanished from the earth. Yet I knew that all over that great valley the
earth was crawling with life and full of immense and sinister
secrecies--the galleries of the sappers, the trenches and redoubts, the
hiding-places of great guns, the concealed observations of the watchers.
Yes, it was just such a scene as this. The only difference was that you had
not to put your ear to the ground to catch the thunder of the guns.
But the voice of war that has broken in upon our peace fades when we are
once more on the move over the downs, and the visions it has brought with
it seem unreal and phantasmal in their serene and sunlit world. The shadows
turn to mere shadows again, and we tread the wild thyme and watch the
spiral of the lark with careless rapture. We dip down into a valley to a
village hidden among the trees, without fear or thought of bomb-proof
shelters and masked batteries, and there in a cottage with the roses over
the porch we take rest and counsel over the teacups.
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