We came to a cross-road and here for a moment the driver stopped to look at his map. Round us the country stretched for miles, with here and there a ruined village or farmhouse breaking the landscape. Under us the road was a dun colour, showing that broken bricks had been used in the fashioning of the highway. Thistles grew by the roadside and through these could be seen many strands of rusted wire, with here and there a cross turning green with the rain and topped with a trench helmet or khaki cap. Flowers grew there, late flowers nodding gravely in the breeze. Not a house was to be seen, not even the ruins of a wall. Above this was a board with something written on it, and leaning over the car I could read the message. This was what it told me:
HERE ONCE STOOD THE VILLAGE OF VILLARS-CARBONNEL.
The Fighters
The loaded limbers trenchward wend, the straining horses churning
The slush upon the cobbled road that takes them to the fray,
And far ahead in lurid tints the fires of war are burning
And leprous white the poplar stumps that line the soldiers' way.
The great rage smites the heavy world and tears the sky asunder
(Oh! silent forms that bow and bend beneath the heavy load!)