The section's new position was only some fifteen hundred yards from the
forward trench; but, being at the bottom of a gently sloping ridge
which ran between the position and the German lines, it was covered
from all except air observation. The two armored cars, containing guns,
were hidden away amongst the shattered ruins of a little hamlet; their
armor-plated bodies, already rendered as inconspicuous as possible by
erratic daubs of bright colors laid on after the most approved Futurist
style, were further hidden by untidy wisps of straw, a few casual
beams, and any other of the broken rubbish which had once been a
village. The men had their quarters in the cellars of one of the broken
houses, and the two officers inhabited the corner of a house with a
more or less remaining roof.

Mary's garden was in a sunny corner of what had been in happier days
the back garden of one of the cottages. The selection, as it turned
out, was not altogether a happy one, because the garden, when abandoned
by its former owner, had run to seed most liberally, and the whole of
its area appeared to be impregnated with a variety of those seeds which
give the most trouble to the new possessor of an old garden. Anyone
with the real gardening instinct appears to have no difficulty in
distinguishing between weeds and otherwise, even on their first
appearance in shape of a microscopic green shoot; but flowers are not
weeds, and Mary had a good deal of trouble to distinguish between the
self-planted growths of nasturtiums, foxgloves, marigolds,
forget-me-nots, and other flowers, and the more prosaic but useful
carrots and spring onions which Mary had introduced. Probably a good
many onions suffered the penalty of bad company, and were sacrificed in
the belief that they were flowers; but on the whole the new garden did
well, and began to show the trim rows of green shoots which afford such