Read "The Great War in England in 1897" by William le Queux online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A cloudy moonless night, with a gusty wind which now and then swept the tops of the forest trees, causing the leaves to surge like a summer sea.
Withered branches creaked and groaned, and a dog howled dismally down in Flimwell village, half a mile away. Leaning with his back against the gnarled trunk of a giant oak on the edge of the forest, his ears alert for the slightest sound, his hand upon his loaded magazine rifle, Geoffrey Engleheart stood on outpost duty. Dressed in a rough shooting suit, with a deerstalker hat and an improvised kit strapped upon his back, he was half hidden by the tall bracken. Standing motionless in the deep shadow, with his eyes fixed upon the wide stretch of sloping meadows, he waited, ready, at the slightest appearance of the enemy's scouts, to raise the alarm and call to arms those who were sleeping in the forest after their day's march.