0345 Hours I sleep like a log, but at a
quarter to four yesterday morning the sound of yelping penetrated my habitual trance. The two hundred odd ewes and lambs in the big field below- the house were crying, and I could hear a wave of movement over the pasture. I got up, put on a pair of shoes and went out. It was pouring with rain, but the darkness was just beginning to go. The yelping had stopped, but the sheep were still frightened and on the move. I went down the field and found them in a huddled phalanx. A dog shot out of the darkness, barked at me and swerved away; it looked like a collie, and bigger than the one I had heard giving tongue. I shouted, threw a flint in its direction, and waited. The sheep quietened down. I stood there, feeling angry and wet and afraid that a lamb had been killed, full of indignation at a state of affairs which involved me in so much inconvenience at such an awkward hour. And then I suddenly thought of men standing-to in fox-holes oh the other side of the world, facing an enemy much more formidable than a cur, protecting something much more important (and much less obvious) than a flock of sheep. Strix, I said to myself, you've lost your sense of proportion; and after a bit I went back to bed in a curiously equable mood.
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