"When the fancy takes me," was the equable reply.
"Have you come out to see our new guns?"
"I had no idea," Lessingham answered indifferently, "that you had
any."
Griffiths smiled.
"We have a small battery of anti-aircraft guns, newly arrived from
the south of England," he said. "The secret of their coming and
their locality has kept the neighbourhood in a state of ferment for
the last week."
Lessingham remained profoundly uninterested.
"They most of them spotted the guns," his companion continued, "but
not many of them have found the searchlights yet."
"It seems a little late in the year," Lessingham observed, "to be
making preparations against Zeppelins."
"Well, they cross here pretty often, you know," Griffiths reminded
him. "It's only a matter of a few weeks ago that one almost came to
grief on this common. We picked up their observation car not fifty
yards from where you are sitting."
"I remember hearing about it," Lessingham acknowledged.
"By-the-by," the Commandant continued, smoothing his horse's neck,
"didn't you arrive that evening or the evening after?"
"I believe I did."
"Liverpool Street or King's Cross? The King's Cross train was very
nearly held up."
"I didn't come by train at all," Lessingham replied, glancing for a
moment into the clouds, "And now I come to think of it, it must have
been the evening after.
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