needless length of tunnel. And just as I was beginning to face these
things, the artilleryman stopped digging, and looked at me.
We re working well, he said. He put down his spade. Let us knock off
a bit, he said. I think it s time we reconnoitred from the roof of
the house.
I was for going on, and after a little hesitation he resumed his spade;
and then suddenly I was struck by a thought. I stopped, and so did he
at once.
Why were you walking about the common, I said, instead of being
here?
Taking the air, he said. I was coming back. It s safer by night.
But the work?
Oh, one can t always work, he said, and in a flash I saw the man
plain. He hesitated, holding his spade. We ought to reconnoitre now,
he said, because if any come near they may hear the spades and drop
upon us unawares.
I was no longer disposed to object. We went together to the roof and
stood on a ladder peeping out of the roof door. No Martians were to be
seen, and we ventured out on the tiles, and slipped down under shelter
of the parapet.
From this position a shrubbery hid the greater portion of Putney, but
we could see the river below, a bubbly mass of red weed, and the low
parts of Lambeth flooded and red. The red creeper swarmed up the trees
about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and dead, and
set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its clusters. It was strange how
entirely dependent both these things were upon flowing water for their
propagation. About us neither had gained a footing; laburnums, pink
mays, snowballs, and trees of arbor-vitae, rose out of laurels and
hydrangeas, green and brilliant into the sunlight. Beyond Kensington
dense smoke was rising, and that and a blue haze hid the northward
hills.
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