13 OCTOBER 1944, Page 14

COUN TRY LIFE

MY Kentish village happens to have been one which, during the u years of threatened invasion, was classified by the military author:, as "a nodal point." And the chief characteristic of a nodal point is L. it has to be defended at all costs by a body of static soldiery. Our Horne Guard company was therefore issued. with weapons intended for this purpose, and we sat down to it, a sort of brotherhood of obstinacy. Apart from certain hush-hush jobs in June, before and after the 6th, we were forced to make a real mission of that " sitting," leaving no rabbit-hole unexplored as a possible concealment for flame-throwers, mortars and all the rest of the modern instruments of defence.