wood, and arrived with the cavalry at Gandeln, a rakish old
town at the bottom of an absurdly steep hill. Huggie passed me with a
message. Returning he told me that the road ahead was pitiably
disgusting.

You must remember that we were hotly pursuing a disorganised foe. In
front the cavalry and horse artillery were harassing them for all they
were worth, and whenever there was an opening our bigger guns would
gallop up for a trifle of blue murder.

From Gandeln the road rises sharply through woods and then runs on high
ground without a vestige of cover for two and a half miles into Chezy.
On this high, open ground our guns caught a German convoy, and we saw
the result.

First there were a few dead and wounded Germans, all muddied. The men
would look curiously at each, and sometimes would laugh. Then at the top
of the hill we came upon some smashed and abandoned waggons. These were
hastily looted. Men piled themselves with helmets, greatcoats, food,
saddlery, until we looked a crowd of dishevelled bandits. The German
wounded watched--they lay scattered in a cornfield, like poppies.
Sometimes Tommy is not a pleasant animal, and I hated him that
afternoon. One dead German had his pockets full of chocolate. They
scrambled over him, pulling him about, until it was all divided.

Just off the road was a small sandpit. Three or four waggons--the
horses, frightened by our shells, had run over the steep place into the
sand. Their heads and necks had been forced back into their carcasses,
and on top of this mash were the splintered waggons. I sat for a long
time by the well in Chezy and watched the troops go by, caparisoned with
spoils. I hated war.

Just as the sun was setting we toiled out of Chezy on to an upland of
cornfields, speckled with grey patches of dead men and reddish-brown
patches of dead horses. One great horse stood out on a little cliff,
black against the yellow of the descending sun. It furiously stank. Each
time I passed it I held my nose, and I was then pretty well used to
smells. The last I saw of it--it lay grotesquely on its back with four
stiff legs sticking straight up like the legs of an overturned table--it
was being buried by a squad of little black men billeted near. They were
cursing richly. The horse's revenge in death, perhaps, for its
ill-treatment in life.

It was decided to stay the night at Chezy. The village was crowded,
dark, and confusing. Three of us found the signal office, and mad