"Wooded all the way?" he asked.
I told him that it was, and, what was more, so winding that you could
not see ten feet ahead anywhere between here and Conde.
"Humph," he said. "Perfectly clear, thank you very much. Please wait
right there a moment."
He looked up the hill behind him, and made a gesture in the air with his
hand above his head. I turned to look up the hill also. I saw the
corporal at the gate repeat the gesture; then a big bicycle corps, four
abreast, guns on their backs, slid round the corner and came gliding
down the hill. There was not a sound, not the rattle of a chain or a
pedal.
"Thank you very much," said the captain. "Be so kind as to keep close
to the bank."
When I reached my gate I found some of the men of the guard dragging a
big, long log down the road, and I watched them while they attached it
to a tree at my gate, and swung it across to the opposite side of the
road, making in that way a barrier about five feet high. I asked what
that was for? "Captain's orders," was the laconic reply. But when it
was done the corporal took the trouble to explain that it was a
barricade to prevent the Germans from making a dash up the hill.
"However," he added, "don't you get nervous. If we chase them out it
will only be a little rifle practice, and I doubt if they even have any
ammunition."