They were the stretcher-bearers bringing in from out there some of the
wreckage of the night before. We went along the trench farther, and at a
later stage we could see men in the mist in ones and twos out in front
of the line. A rifle or two from somewhere behind the mist were pecking
regularly--sniping from some German outpost; and it seemed not wise to
show yourself too freely--the mist was lifting, and you never knew
whether the Germans were this side of it or not. But though those
bullets pecked constantly at the small parties or at stragglers of the
night's attack hopping back from advanced shell-holes, the little
procession with the flag passed through unharmed. If the sniper saw it
he must have turned his rifle for the moment somewhere else.

We made our way back, when we went, across a hill-side literally flayed
of all its covering. The barrage of the night before, and of other days,
had fallen there, and the slope was simply a ploughed field. I could not
get rid of that impression at the time, and it is the only one that I
have of it still--that we were hurrying up a ploughed countryside along
a little, irregular, newly-made footpath. We had come out upon a road
and crossed it at one point. After a second or two's thought one
recognised that it _was_ a road, because the banks of it ran straight.
It had been like coming on the body of a man without his skin--it took
you some time to realise that this flayed thing was a road at all.

There was a shrapnel shell regularly spitting across that country. We
knew we should have to pass it, and one was naturally anxious to be
under cover at the moment. At this time I noticed on our left a little
group of figures, faintly seen in the mist, attending to some job in the
open. We came in sight of the trench we were making for, and they hailed
us asking the way. We told them, and they came slowly across the open
towards us. They were standing above the trench intent on some business