y head, with a scream which made my heart quite sick. I sat down
cowering under a ruined thorn-tree by the road, crying like a little
child. It must have been a moment after that when I saw a man staggering
down the road towards me, holding his side with both hands. He fell
into the road, dead, not far from me. Then others came past, some so
fearfully hurt that it was a miracle that they should walk. They came
past in a long horrible procession, men without weapons, without hands,
shot in the head, in the body, lacerated, bleeding, limping, with white
drawn faces, tottering to the town which they would never see again. I
shut my eyes, crouching well under the tree, while this fight went
on. It was nothing but a time of pain, a roaring, booming horror with
shrieks in it. I don't know how long it lasted. I only know that the
shooting seemed suddenly to pass into a thunder of horse-hoofs as
the King's dragoons came past in a charge. Right in front of me they
galloped, hacking at the fleers, leaning out from their saddles to cut
at them, leaning down to stab them, rising up to reach at those who
climbed the banks. Under that tide of cavalry the Duke's army melted.
They fought in clumps desperately. They flung away their weapons. They
fled. They rushed down desperately to meet death. It was all a medley of
broken noises, oaths, stray shots, cries, wounded men whimpering, hurt
horses screaming. The horses were the worst part of it. Perhaps you
never heard a horse scream.

That morning's work is all very confused to me. I remember seeing men
cut down as they ran. I remember a fine horse coming past me lurching,
clattering his stirrups, before leaping into the river. I remember the
stink of powder over all the field; the strange look on the faces of
the dead; the body of a trumpeter, kneeling against a gorse-bush, shot
through the heart, with his trumpet raised to his lips, the litter
everywhere, burnt cartridges, clothes, belts, shot, all the waste of
war. They are in my mind, those memories, like scattered pictures. The
next clear memory in my mind, is of a company of cavalry in red coats,
under a fierce, white-faced man, bringing in a string of prisoners to
the King's camp. A couple of troopers jumped down to examine me. One had
the face of a savage; the other was half drunk. "You're one of them,"
they said. "Bring him on." They twisted string about my thumbs. I
was their prisoner. They dragged me into the King's camp, where