Poterloo lets me do it by myself--he is like a sleepwalker. He
looks, and looks in despair, everywhere. He seeks endlessly among
those evanished and eviscerated things; through the void he gazes to
the haze of the horizon. Then he sits down on a beam, having first
sent flying with a kick a saucepan that lay on it, and I sit by his
side. A light drizzle is falling. The fog's moisture is resolving in
little drops that cover everything with a slight gloss. He murmurs,
"Ah, la, la!"

He wipes his forehead and raises imploring eyes to me. He is trying
to make out and take in the destruction of all this corner of the
earth, and the mournfulness of it. He stammers disjointed remarks
and interjections. He takes off his great helmet and his head is
smoking. Then he says to me with difficulty, "Old man, you cannot
imagine, you cannot, you cannot--"

He whispers: "The Red Tavern, where that--where that Boche's head
is, and litters of beastliness all around, that sort of cesspool--it
was on the edge of the road, a brick house and two out-buildings
alongside--how many times, old man, on the very spot where we stood,
how many times, there, the good woman who joked with me on her
doorstep, I've given her good-day as I wiped my mouth and looked
towards Souchez that I was going back to! And then, after a few
steps, I've turned round to shout some nonsense to her! Oh, you
cannot imagine! But that, now, that!" He makes an inclusive gesture
to indicate all the emptiness that surrounds him.

"We mustn't stay here too long, old chap. The fog's lifting, you
know."