The
bank official regretted the delay. The officers stamped about.
"It looks like a shower," said the bank official. "Later in the day it
may be cooler."
The officers muttered among themselves.
It took the vault keeper a long time to get his keys and return, but
at last he arrived. They went down and down, through innumerable doors
that must be unlocked before them, through gratings and more steel
doors. And at last they stood in the vaults.
The German officers stared about and then turned to the Belgian
official.
"The gold!" they said furiously. "Where is the gold?"
"The gold!" said the official, much surprised. "You wished to see the
gold? I am sorry. You asked for the vaults and I have shown you the
vaults. The gold, of course, is in England."
We sped on, the same flat country, the same grey fields, the same
files of soldiers moving across those fields toward distant billets,
the same transports and ambulances, and over all the same colourless
sky.
Not very long ago some inquiring British scientist discovered that on
foggy days in London the efficiency of the average clerk was cut down
about fifty per cent. One begins to wonder how much of this winter
_impasse_ is due to the weather, and what the bright and active days
of early spring will bring. Certainly the weather that day weighed on
me.
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