He did not realise that in after days the memory of every weary hour of
trudging, of every bullet that had hummed by, and of every shell that
had burst, would be a joy for ever. The thought had never struck any of
them, unsentimental souls!

At this point his memory confessedly breaks down. He remembers perfectly
a certain "ten minutes' halt" spent in the shade of a sheaf of corn. He
remembers plunging into a pine forest; but thenceforward there is a
blank. His memory snaps. He cannot recollect passing through that wood,
much less passing out of it. A link in the chain of his memory must have
snapped.

When next he recollects anything clearly it may have been that night,
the next night, or the night after that. Anyway, it was very dark, and
the Battalion was eventually halted in an open field. Somehow or other,
straw was procured for the rest, but his own Platoon was sent forward to
hold an outpost position along the banks of a small stream.

Although in the daytime the sun shone with undiminished fervour, the
nights were getting certainly far more chilly than they had been in
August. But when one has to get up at daybreak, having never had more
than four hours sleep, one does not notice it much.

During the night a fresh draft arrived.

The next morning they very soon encountered an entirely new sight, a
French village hastily evacuated by the enemy. At least half of the
houses had been broken into, and all the shops and inns. The Germans had
dragged chairs and tables to the roadside, and they must have been