at the wood fringes around Disraeli’s house and grounds. And sure enough, there were old traces of wounds and wars there, combat aircraft motifs on the pathway signs and an ice store bunkhouse converted into a black chamber, where agents once stooped over aerial pics of enemy factory districts. They watched from rumbling bombers seventy years back and now there are shark-grey tubes and fins silent above us, ranks of mobile phone chips in their nosecone cameras recording every moving object, tracking, recognizing, analyzing for threats. All for the good if they can keep us from harm. And what choice do we have but to trust the shepherd? But, a few steps back from the poppies and you’re under the ash and oak canopy, out of sight of the electric eye, free to walk the shaded paths and review the past. Free to imagine and peer at the flickering shapes of the soon to come.
