I went out on the road. The night had cleared and was now breezy; the moon rode high amongst scurrying clouds, the trees in the fields were harassed by a tossing motion and leant towards the village as if seeking to get there. The grasses shivered, agitated and helpless, and behind the Twin Towers of Loos the star-shells burst into many-coloured flames and showed like a summer flower-garden against the sky. A windmill, with one wing intact, stood out, a ghostly phantom, on a rise overlooking Hulluch.
The road to Maroc was very quiet and almost deserted; the nightly traffic had not yet begun, and the nightly cannonade was as yet merely fumbling for an opening. The wrecks of the previous days were still lying there; long-eared mules immobile in the shafts of shattered limbers, dead Highlanders with their white legs showing wan in the moonlight, boys in khaki with their faces pressed tightly against the cobblestones, broken wagons, discarded stretchers, and derelict mailbags with their rain-sodden parcels and letters from home.
Many wounded were still lying out in the fields. I could hear them calling for help and groaning.
"How long had they lain there?" I asked myself. "Two days, probably. Poor devils!"
I walked along, the water jar knocking against my legs. My heart was filled with gloom. "What is the meaning of all this?" I queried. "This wastage, this hell?"
A white face peered up at me from a ditch by the roadside, and a weak voice whispered, "Matey!"
"What is it, chummy?" I queried, coming close to the wounded man.
"Can you get me in?" he asked. "I've been out for—oh! I don't know how long," he moaned.
"Where are you wounded?" I asked.