n our clothes, our faces and our necks, each
successive star-light showed the water trickling down our rifle butts
and dripping to the roadway. Stoner slept as he marched, his hand in
Kore's. We often move along in this way, it is quite easy, there is
lullaby in the monotonous step, and the slumbrous crunching of nailed
boots on gravel.

We turned off the road where it runs through the rubble and scattered
bricks, all that remains of the village of Givenchy, and took our way
across a wide field. The field was under water in the wet season, and
a brick pathway had been built across it. Along this path we took our
way. A strong breeze had risen and was swishing our waterproofs (p. 143)
about our bodies; the darkness was intense, I had to strain my eyes to
see the man in front, Stoner. In the darkness he was a nebulous dark
bulk that sprang into bold relief when the starlights flared in front.
When the flare died out we stumbled forward into pitch dark nothingness.
The pathway was barely two feet across, a mere tight-rope in the wide
waste, and on either side nothing stood out to give relief to the
desolate scene; over us the clouds hung low, shapeless and gloomy,
behind was the darkness, in front when the starlights made the
darkness visible they only increased the sense of solitude.

We stumbled and fell, rose and fell again, our capes spreading out
like wings and our rifles falling in the mud. The sight of a man or
woman falling always makes me laugh. I laughed as I fell, as Stoner
fell, as Mervin, Goliath, Bill, or Pryor fell. Sometimes we fell
singly, again in pairs, often we fell together a heap of rifles,
khaki, and waterproof capes. We rose grumbling, spitting mud and
laughing. Stoner was very unfortunate, a particle of dirt got into his
eye almost blinding him. Afterwards he crawled along, now and again
getting to his feet, merely to fall back into his earthy position. (p. 144)
A rifle fire opened on us from the front, and bullets whizzed past our
ears, voices mingled with the ting of searching bullets.

"Anybody hurt?"

"No, all right so far."

"Stoner's down."

"He's up again."

"Blimey, it's a balmy."

"Mervin's crawling on his hands and knees."

"Nark the doin's, ye're on my waterproof. Let go!"

"Goliath's down."

"Are you struck, Goliath?"

"No, I wish to heaven I was," muttered the giant, bulking up in the
flare of a searchlight, blood dripping from his face showed where he
had been scra