Читать книгу The Oaken Heart онлайн

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Of course, at that time we knew nothing about gas at all, and the notion of a concentration strong enough to envelop half the county did not then seem absurd. Fogs and sea-wracks are a commonplace with us, and it was only natural to assume that something like one of these, but possessing all the "injurious properties" mentioned in Me's book, was not really unlikely.

Meanwhile Albert's father suddenly remembered the Tye and Shadow Hill and Abbot's Dyke. These are outlying hamlets in the parish of Auburn, but separated from it by several miles of winding muddy lanes. The folks up there would not have heard about the masks yet, save in a general way from the wireless. Fortunately he knew of some first-rate people in each community, who came along at once and collected their own and their neighbours' masks.

All the morning the "shopkeeping" at the hall went on. Some of the more frail elderly ladies who had not felt up to joining the scrum the night before came in with embroidered shopping bags and bent their sleek little grey heads meekly for the rubber monstrosities and asked very gently for a good recipe for getting mustard gas off the skin.