most terrible thing of all was the utter silence. Snow muffled the fall
of the dragging feet; it lay thick on the masses of ruins in the
shattered empty villages; and when the brigade major's greeting rang
out men shrank and looked fearful at the sudden sound. Yet when I spoke
to any, as they staggered through the snow past the point whither I had
gone to meet them, life flickered up for a moment from the depths of
that final exhaustion. 'What price Charlie Chaplin now, sir!' said one
man whose wavering footsteps led him hither and thither. And another in
simple words summed up the heroic simple spirit of them all: 'Well,
we've keepit up the reputation o' the auld mob, onyway.' Indomitable
men! Who could ever vanquish you?

Rest meant tent boards under frozen canvas, but it was rest. On that
weary morning even the uninviting outline of Reninghelst village seemed
like home.




THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE




CHAPTER VIII

THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE


The last time I saw the Ypres salient was from the shoulder of the