t of the village and marching along a
splendid road.

The day was bright and sunny, but a searching wind blew straight
in our faces and made travelling difficult. It seemed to beat
unmercifully on my sore shoulder, and I held my right wrist with
my left hand, to keep the weight off my shoulder all I could.

I had not gone far when I began to grow weak and dizzy. The thirst
was the worst; my tongue was dry and swollen, and it felt like a
cocoa doormat. I could see rings of light wherever I looked, and
the ground seemed to come up in waves. A guard who rode near me had
a water-bottle beside him which dripped water. The cork was not in
tight as it should have been, and the sight of these drops of water
seemed to madden me. I begged him for a drink, and pointed to my
parched tongue; but he refused, and rode ahead as if the sight of
me annoyed him!

Ahead of us I could see the smoke of a large town, and I told myself
over and over again that there would be lots of water there, and food
and clean clothes, and in this way I kept myself alive until we
reached Roulers.

CHAPTER III

INTO GERMANY

Roulers is a good-sized town in West Flanders, of about thirty
thousand population, much noted for its linen manufacture; and has a
great church of St. Michael with a very high tower, which we could
see for miles. But I do not remember much about the look of the town,
for I could hardly drag my feet. It seemed as if every step would be
my last. But I held on some way, until we reached the stopping-place,
which happened to be an unused school. The men who had not been
wounded had arrived several hours ahead of us.

When, at last, I sat down on one of the benches, the whole place
seemed to float by me. Nothing would stand still. The sensation was
like the water dizziness which makes one feel he is being rapidly
propelled upstream. But after sitting awhile, it passed, and I began
to recognize some of our fellows. Frost, of my own battalion, was
there, and when I told him I had had nothing to eat since the early
morning of the day before, he immediately produced a hardtack biscuit
and scraped out the bottom of his jam tin. They had been served with
a ration of war-bread, and several of the boys offered me a share of
their scanty allowance, but the first mouthful was all I could take.
It was sour, heavy, and stale.

The school pump had escaped the fate of the last pump I had seen, and
was in good working order, and its asth