There is a quicker throbbing of the heart when the men arrive at the
crest of the hill, well known to all, but presenting fresh aspects
every time the soldier reaches its summit, that overlooks the firing
line.
Ahead, the star-shells, constellations of green, electric white, and
blue, light the scenes of war. From the ridge of the hill, downwards
towards an illimitable plain, the road takes its way through a
ghost-world of ruined homes where dark and ragged masses of broken
roof and wall stand out in blurred outlines against indistinct and
formless backgrounds.
A gun is belching forth murder and sudden death from an (p. 304)
emplacement on the right; in a spinney on the left a battery is noisy
and the flashes from there light up the cluster of trees that stand
huddled together as if for warmth. Vehicles of war lumber along the
road, field-kitchens, gun-limbers, water-carts, motor-ambulances, and
Red Cross waggons. Men march towards us, men in brown, bearing rifles
and swords, and pass us in the night. A shell bursts near, and there
is a sound as of a handful of peas being violently flung to the
ground.
For the night we stop in a village where the branches of the trees are
shrapnelled clean of their leaves, and where all the rafters of the
houses are bared of their covering of red tiles. A wind may rise when
you're dropping off to sleep on the stone flags of a cellar, and then
you can hear the door of the house and of nearly every house in the
place creaking on its hinges.
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