weary of time,
Who countest ..._"

"One, two, three, four," he counted the shells outside exploding at
irregular intervals.

There were periods of absolute silence, when he could hear batteries
pong, pong, pong in the distance.

He began again.

"_Ah, sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun
In search of that far golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done._

"_Where the youth pined away with desire
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow
Arise from their graves and aspire
Where my sunflower wishes to go._"

Whang, whang, whang; the battery alongside began again, sending out the
light. Someone pulled the blanket aside. A little leprous greyness
filtered into the dugout.

"Ah, it's getting light."

The doctor went out and they could hear his steps climbing up to the
level of the ground.

Howe saw a man take his mask off and spit.

"Oh, God, a cigarette!" Tom Randolph cried, pulling his mask off. The
air of the woods was fresh and cool outside. Everything was lost in mist
that filled the shell-holes as with water and wreathed itself
fantastically about the shattered trunks of trees. Here and there was
still a little greenish haze of gas. It cut their throats and made their
eyes run as they breathed in the cool air of the dawn.

* * * * *

Dawn in a wilderness of jagged stumps and ploughed earth; against the
yellow sky, the yellow glare of guns that squat like toads in a tangle
of wire and piles of brass shell-cases and split wooden boxes. Long
rutted roads littered with shell-cases stretching through the wrecked
woods in the yellow light; strung alongside of them, tangled masses of
telephone wires. Torn camouflage fluttering greenish-grey against the
ardent yellow sky, and twining among the fantastic black leafless trees,
the greenish wraiths of gas. Along the roads camions overturned, dead
mules tangled in their traces beside shattered caissons, huddled bodies
in long blue coats half buried in the mud of the ditches.

"We've got to pass.... We've got five very bad cases."

"Impossible."

"We've got to pass.... Sacred name of God!"

"But it is impossible. Two camions are blocked across the road and there
are three batteries of seventy-fives waiting to get up the road."

Long lines of men on horseback with gas-masks on, a rearing of
frightened horses and jingle of harness.

"Talk to 'em, Howe,