"I used to be able before—before the—" I stopped feeling that I had forgotten some event.
"I don't know why, but I feel strange," I said, "When did you come to this village?"
"Village?"
"That one up there." I looked in the direction where the village stood a moment before, but every red-brick house with its roof of terra-cotta tiles had vanished. I was gazing along my own glen in Donegal with its quiet fields, its sunny braes, steep hills and white lime-washed cottages, snug under their neat layers of straw.
The white road ran, almost parallel with the sparkling river, through a wealth of emerald green bottom lands. How came I to be here? I turned to my brother to ask him something, but I could not speak.
A funeral came along the road; four men carried a black coffin shoulder high; they seemed to be in great difficulties with their burden. They stumbled and almost fell at every step. A man carrying his coat and hat in one hand walked in front, and he seemed to be exhorting those who followed to quicken their pace. I sympathised with the man in front. Why did the men under the coffin walk so slowly? It was a ridiculous way to carry a coffin, on the shoulders. Why did they not use a stretcher? It would be the proper thing to do. I turned to my brother.
"They should have stretchers, I told him."
"Stretchers?"
"And stretcher-bearers."
"Stretcher-bearers at the double!" he snapped and vanished. I flashed back into reality again; the sentinel on the left was leaning towards me; I could see his face, white under the Balaclava helmet. There was impatience in his voice when he spoke.