Single file through the streaming darkness, they jog-trotted the uneven road.

The rain beat in Peter’s eyes; little Willie stumbled, pulling wet reins through wet gauntlets; recovered himself; jogged on. Peter leaned over; gentled the arched neck. Peering forward, he could just see the huge chestnut’s lifting croup, the Weasel’s bobbing torso.... Something came screaming out of the murk; flashed crimson; whistled; pattered to ground. Instinctively, Peter’s knees tightened on the saddle-flaps. Little Willie hunched himself for a gallop; felt steady hand at his mouth; desisted. “Anybody hurt?” called the Colonel. Peter turned in his saddle; saw Jelks wrenching Queen Bess back to the road, a second figure coming up steadily behind. “No, sir. Ten yards to our left.” ... They rode on.

Now they were into Vermelles—a broad street of battered houses. The Colonel slowed to a walk. Came another whistle, followed by the smash of tiles, the clink of falling brick on cobble. “This is damned unpleasant,” thought our Mr. Jameson. He saw Stark bend down, speak to a shadow on the road. They veered left; right again; over a railway-line into a soft road, trees on either side. The rain had almost stopped. Behind them, shells still whistled over the town. Immediately about them, all was quiet. Stark bent from his saddle; flashed a torch at the roadway; inclined right. They jogged on three hundred yards over turf, past a big hay-rick. Stark flashed his torch again: signalled “dismount.”

“Sorry,” he said when Peter came up. “Couldn’t risk being blocked on the main-road. That’s the farm. We’ll have to walk the rest.” He pointed to a yellow light; handed reins to his groom—an old man, clean-shaven and bow-legged.

“Doherty, you and Jelks will take the horses back to that hay-rick. Let ’em feed. Whatever happens, don’t move from it. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ruddy muck-up all round,” commented the Weasel to his Adjutant as they stumbled down into a greasy trench; lost the light; hauled themselves out; found it again; picked their way through five yards of wire; felt mud and cobbles under their feet; saw the light close in front of them....

Suddenly, Peter grew aware of noise. A noise inhuman. The whimper of damned souls. A wail as of wet fingers on an enormous glass: a wail that rose and fell, interminable, unbearable. Suddenly, he was aware whence that wail came.

All along the muddy roadway they lay: the wounded: hundreds of them: thousands: brown blanket shapes: some muttering: some moaning: some singing in delirium: some quite still. The agony of it gripped Peter in the stomach. Vomit rushed to his throat; was choked down again....

The Colonel stepped over a moaning form; pulled back a sack curtain revealing bare walls, an oil-lamp, three gunner officers eating round a trestle table.

“Is this Le Rutoire?” rasped the Weasel.

The three officers rose to their feet: “Part of it, sir,” said one, “the rest’s about fifty yards down the road.”

“Is General Ballardyce here?”

“No, sir.”

“Who are you?”

“Siege,” said the officer, and gave his number. “We’ve got two six-inch Hows. in the farm.”

“Haven’t seen an Infantry General anywhere about?”

“No, sir.”

“All right. I’ll try down the road.”

“Have a drink before you go, sir?”

“No, thanks.”

They clambered back into the darkness; set off, between the moaning forms, down the road; found a great gloomy gateway. Here, the wounded lay in hundreds. Shapes stood over them; lifted them; loaded them into the shelves of hooded cars. The cars chugged away. Other cars chugged up....

They passed through the gateway. “Do you know if General Ballardyce is here?” asked Stark of a big man, chaplain’s cross on his cap.

“No, I don’t,” answered the parson. “Who the hell is General Ballardyce?”

They searched the farm, gloomy outhouse after gloomy outhouse. Everywhere lay the wounded, brown shapes, moaning and wailing. Finally, they found steps; stumbled down them into an underground cellar. The place looked, smelt, was a charnel house. The reek of it struck Peter like a blow. Reek of blood! Blood everywhere. Bloody forms lying on bloody sacks. Bloody bandages in bloody buckets. A man with bloody hands stooping over bloody flesh.

“Let’s get out of this,” rasped Stark....

Once more they stood outside the farm, among the chugging cars, the moaning wounded. A form approached them. A voice asked “Are you General Ballardyce?”

“I am not,” said Colonel Stark.

The form materialized into a pale-faced subaltern, whom Peter recognized.

“Aren’t you Rutton of the Chalkshires?”

“Yes. Jameson, isn’t it? I say, I wish you could help me. I’ve got all the travelling cookers of the 2nd Infantry Brigade just up the road. And I’ve been ordered to rendezvous with them at Haisnes Church at dawn....”

“Haisnes is three miles away from here; and it’s inside the Boche lines, young man,” interrupted Stark.

“I know, sir. But I’ve got written orders.” He fumbled inside his coat, produced a message-form. Stark flashed a torch on it. “You see, sir. It’s quite clear. What am I to do, sir?”

“Use your common sense, young man. You can’t charge the Boche with your sanguinary kitchens....”

An orderly stumbled up; saluted Rutton; said, “The General’s been gone three hours, sir. One of the doctors just remembered him riding up and riding off again.”

“What am I to do, sir?” wailed Rutton.

But Stark was indulging himself in one real outburst: a frothing torrent of scarlet blasphemy that submerged every gilded head between Saint Omer and the Pylons of Loos....