‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Can I be of any assistance? You all look extremely busy.’

‘Yes, we are,’ said Mansell, leaning on his shovel. ‘That’s far enough, Ed. It’s only for a first trial. If you can spare a minute, Mrs Bradley, I wonder if you would mind climbing to the lower end of the barrow and planting this stick as soon as I ask you to stop?’

‘It would give me great pleasure,’ Mrs Bradley replied. ‘You wish to obtain an orientation, no doubt.’

Mansell neither contradicted nor confirmed this view. He said:

‘It is just to test a theory. Now, Miles, you climb to the upper end of the barrow, and plant this stick. Then we shall have the angle we want, I hope.’

‘Do I stop when you call out to Mrs Bradley?’ enquired Obury, taking the stout white stake which Mansell handed to him.

‘No. You are to plant your stick when you hear my whistle. I don’t know whether I shall sound that first, or call out to Mrs Bradley. All right. Off you go. Please don’t hurry, Mrs Bradley. We are not at all pressed for time. I don’t expect to attempt more than the beginning of my trench this morning.’

Mrs Bradley began her upward climb. She had further to go than Obury, but her walk was not as steep as his. She took her time, as Mansell had suggested, and was not at all surprised to hear his whistle before she had reached her objective. She looked to her right and saw Obury beginning to knock his stake into the turf with the small mallet with which he had been provided.

Then, faint but clear, came the order to her to stop. She stopped obediently and knocked her stake firmly into the ground. Mansell had a theodolite. She saw him motioning first to Ed Brown and then to Emming. The two of them took up positions directly in line with the two points set up respectively by herself and Obury.

Mansell cupped his hands and called to them to return to the dig. They did this leisurely, and, by the time Mrs Bradley was back, two measuring lines at an angle of about sixty degrees, with a centre line bisecting them, had been pegged out by Ed and Emming under Mansell’s skilful directions.

The men then began to dig three trenches and Mrs Bradley noticed that Emming worked faster although not as skilfully as Ed. Mansell took no part in the actual digging and Mrs Bradley, perceiving that there was nothing useful that she could do, walked onwards up the hill.

As soon as she gained the further side of the barrow, she made a detour and crawled through a spiny gap between the hawthorns. Then she made a fairly long cast across a hilly field and so up from the east to the top of the barrow.