CHAPTER X.THE JOY OF BATTLE.
They sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, in the topmost corner of the field.

In the hedge, close at hand, was a commotion of birds.

In the elm tree, a little further away, a thrush was singing.

A soft west wind blew in their faces; the air immediately around them was filled with sunlight.

Yet almost to their feet stretched one of those great arms of the city--a suburb, with its miles of villas, its clanging of electric cars, its waste plots, its rows of struggling shops.