more peaceful than was that lovely evening.
The dark plum-colour in the evening sky soaked like wine into the
hills, the fields, the thatched cottages, the streams and the little
woods.

The faint saffron that lingered below the crests and peaks of rosy
cloud showed between the stems of the silver birches like the friendly
smile of a happy day. The only human beings to be seen were the
peasants driving home their cows; far on the horizon the Carpathian
mountains were purple in the dusk, the snow on their highest ridges
faintly silver. There was not a sound in the world except the ring of
our horses' hoofs upon the road. And yet this sinister excitement
hammered, from somewhere, at me as I had never felt it before. It was
as though the lovely evening were a painted scene lowered to hide some
atrocity.

"This is scarcely what you expected a conquered country to look like,
is it?" I said to Trenchard.

He looked about him, then said, hesitating: "No ... that is ... I
don't know what I expected."

A curved moon, dull gold like buried treasure, rose slowly above the
hill; one white star flickered and the scents of the little gardens
that lined the road grew thicker in the air as the day faded.

I was conscious of some restraint with Trenchard: "He's probably
wishing," I thought, "that he'd not been so expansive last night. He
doesn't trust me."

Once he said abruptly:

"They'll give me ... won't they ... work to do? It would be terrible
if there wasn't work. I'm not so ... so stupid at bandaging. I learnt
a lot in the hospital and although I'm clumsy with my hands generally
I'm not so clumsy about that--"

"Why of course," I answered. "When there's work they'll be only too
delighted. But there won't always be work. You must be prepared for
that. Sometimes our Division is in reserve and then we're in reserve
too. Sometimes for so much as a fortnight. When I was out here before
I was in one place for more than two months. You must just take
everything as it comes."

"I want to work," he said. "I _must_."

Once again only he spoke:

"That little fat man who travelled with us...."

"Andrey Vassilievitch," I said.

"Yes.... He interests me. You knew him before?"

"Yes. I've known him slightly for some years."

"What has he come for? He's frightened out of his life."

"Frightened?"

"Yes, he himself told me. He says that he's very nervous but that he
must do everything that every one else does--for a certai