THE BATTLE OF FRANCE
make a wall. Since the invention of the caterpillar
tractor, the scale of the war machine has changed.
The sappers are on intimate terms with these
monsters. Like the elephant-boys that get their
charges to crack nuts for them, they adapt their
excavators to a thousand and one jobs. With
amazing dexterity the machines drive in the stakes,
shift tiny objects, even hand the workers their
dinners.
'Your ditch is a fine obstacle, sir,5 I said.
c Commanded as it is from all sides by anti-tank
guns, I believe it's insuperable/
'And your anti-tank gunners are accurate?5
'Yes, I was at one of their firing practices the
other day. It was quite satisfactory/
I looked around me and saw the powerful,
unbroken fortress that ran along the length of our
frontiers. I thought of the very similar picture I had
just seen in the French lines and remembered then
what Winston Churchill once said to me. I met him
in London at a time when England seemed very
weak as compared with Germany and I had taken
the liberty of telling him so.
It's quite true,' he replied, 'quite true. But have
you ever studied the habits of the lobster?'
I had to admit that this was not one of my normal
pursuits.
'Well,' he said, 'there are times in a lobster's life
when he loses his shell. He secretes a new one
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