cavalry force from French north Africa. He was a handsome dark brown
Arab, wearing a long yellow-white robe and a tall cap about which ran
a band of sheepskin. He was riding one of those little fine lean horses
with long tails that I think are Barbary horses, his archaic saddle rose
fore and aft of him, and the turned-up toes of his soft leather boots
were stuck into great silver stirrups. He might have ridden straight
out of the Arabian nights. He passed thoughtfully, picking his way
delicately among the wire and the shell craters, and coming into
the road, broke into a canter and vanished in the direction of the
smashed-up refinery.


2

About such towns as Rheims or Arras or Soissons there is an effect of
waiting stillness like nothing else I have ever experienced. At Arras
the situation is almost incredible to the civilian mind. The British
hold the town, the Germans hold a northern suburb; at one point near the
river the trenches are just four metres apart. This state of tension has
lasted for long months.

Unless a very big attack is contemplated, I suppose there is no
advantage in an assault; across that narrow interval we should only
get into trenches that might be costly or impossible to hold, and so it
would be for the Germans on our side. But there is a kind of etiquette
observed; loud vulgar talking on either side of the four-metre gap leads
at once to bomb throwing. And meanwhile on both sides guns of various
calibre keep up an intermittent fire, the German guns register--I think
that is the right term--on the cross of Arras cathedral, the British
guns search lovingly for the German batteries. As one walks about the