For a long while then they sat silent.
“It mightn’t have been so very far from here,” said the platoon commander. “It was in France, now I come to think of it. But it was a lovely part of France, all woods and orchards. Nothing like this, thank God.” And he glanced with a tired look at the unutterable desolation.
“Where was it?” said the other.
“In Picardy,” he said.
“Aren’t we in Picardy now?” said his friend.
“Are we?” he said.
“I don’t know. The maps don’t call it Picardy.”
“It was a fine place, anyway,” the platoon commander said. “There seemed always to be a wonderful light on the hills. A kind of short grass grew on them, and it shone in the sun at evening. There were black woods above them. A man used to come out of them singing at evening.”
He looked wearily round at the brown desolation of weeds. As far as the two officers could see there was nothing but brown weeds and bits of brown barbed wire. He turned from the desolate scene back to his reminiscences.
“He came singing through the orchards into the village,” he said. “A quaint old place with queer gables, called Ville-en-Bois.”