Here are the quotations for this week (March 12th to 18th):

1....They clawed, they slapped, they fled, leaving behind them a trophy of banners and brasses crudely arranged round the big drum. Then that end of the street also shut its windows, and the village, stripped of life, lay round me like a reef at low tide...
 
2. ...he heard a sound as though all the earth were humming. Then he ran as he had never run in his life before, spurned aside one - two - three of the plies of stones into the dark sweet-smelling gullies; heard a roar like the roar of the sea in a cave, saw with the tail of his eye the air grow dark behind him ...

3. ...the old Queen cried the swarming cry, which to a bee of good blood should be what the trumpet was to Job's war-horse. In spite of her immense age it rang between the canyon-like frames as a pibroch rings in a mountain pass ... and the broad-winged drones, burly and eager, ended it on one nerve-thrilling outbreak of bugles: 'La Reine le veult ! Swarm ! Swar-rm ! Swar-r-rm !'...

The sources of the last set of extracts are as follows:

1. (…'The tension snapped. Simmons fell back on the arm-rack deliberately, - the men were at the far end of the room, - and took out his rifle and pack of ammunition.)  This is from "In The Matter of a Private" in Soldiers Three.

2.  ( …'The fallin'-block had sprung free behind a full charge av powder - good care I tuk to bite down the brass afther takin' out the bullet, that there might be somethin' to give ut full worth...)  This is from "Black Jack" in Soldiers Three.

3.  ( I saw a sword lick out past Crook's ear, an' the Paythan was tuk in the apple of his throat like a pig at Dromeen Fair.
 ' "Thank ye, Brother Inner Guard," sez Crook…' )  This is from "With the Main Guard" in Soldiers Three.

Good Spring-time wishes to all

John R