Combed Out

deemed he it fair to take horses or garmen

uailgne, 5

as flashing and scintillating. Down in the valley, where several British b

t and throw up sheets of lurid flame. German shells came whistling over and burst with angry, reverberating roars. Black fountains of earth and smoke spurted up from the fields and left slowly t

and then the whistle of German shells became les

red German prisoners pass

es had b

rugated iron littered the sodden mud. Water, rust-stained or black and fetid, stagnated in pools and shell-holes. The sides of the trench were moist with iridescent slime. Dead soldiers lay everywhere with grey faces, grey hands and mouldering uniforms. Their pockets were turned inside out and mud-stained letters and postcard

hin the camp-lines. Then darkness d

ed with wisps of soaked grass and decaying st

We were wedged in tightly, shoulder t

was conscious of a slight irritation, but was so tired and depressed that

ion increased. At last it became so maddening that I starte

us

?" said someone

ted that we had more than one or two, even when we knew we had a great many. It

ranks the other day an' I saw three of 'em crorlin' out of 'is collar up 'is

" flared

ys that never washes. I bet yer me borram

ts were flung about. But the quarrel, like nearly

b-nail so that the blood spurted out. I heard several faint cracks coming from

are so minute that some are sure to escape the most careful scrutiny. The presence of eggs is always a warning t

t a second time in order to make sure. I soon found a whitish elongated bo

g himself and sighing with desperate vexation, lit his candle and began to s

candle and wrapped myself in my blankets. I was unable to stretch my legs because others were in the way. I w

me the cold, clammy moisture from the soft sodden mud u

in vain to go to sleep. I heard my neighbour scratching himself steadily. Nor could he find a comfortable pos

monstrous lice passed before my closed eyes. I was fully awake long before reveillé, sle

ind to load a lorry. And then we, too,

ring across shell-holes and striding through long grass and weeds. Now and again we would

fine rain began to fall. The top o

ep vertical fissures. I peered into the narrow entrance that sloped steeply down. I slipped in the soft mud, but by stretching out my arms and clasping the oute

for not a square yard of ground had remained untouched. Some of the holes were wide and deeply funnel-shaped, others were shallow, and others were hardly distinguishable, the earth having been churned and tossed up time after time. On the very top

linters that projected from the ground in two parallel

shattered boards and contorted iron sheeting. Dead Frenchmen were lying everywhere. From a drab heap of mud and clothing a human arm projected. The termina

o soldiers were scrapi

stink! I 'ope 'e's got summat in 'is pocke

ey,

adians and Aussies-them's the blokes yer want ter look for. Fritz ain't so bad neither. I got a blood

under 'im an'

p the putrefying corpse. The other turned the pockets inside out. A few

luck! Let's see if we can

but our Corporal, who was rather an unsoldierly individual,

the dead for? Why don'

usiness? What's the use o' lettin' good stuff go west? A dead un can't do nothin' wi' watches an' rings an'

wo men turned away in order to continue th

. The hill loomed dimly behind us, and, looking ahead through the

amaged. The skin was black and drawn tightly over the skull. The hair was matted, but the short, blonde moustache had been neatly trimmed. The lips were shrivelled, exposing two perfect

h there was a deep triangular hole. Two or three yards away there was a booted leg and beyond that a severed hand lying beside a heap of

een broken off short or torn up by the roots. They were all dead and ashen grey. Behind them was a broad ring of stagnant water covered with duckweed. On the island within the ring was a huge heap of loose bricks-a few months ago this had been a pict

ther with splintered beams and rafters, riddled sheets of lead and zinc, broken chairs, twisted brass candlesticks, bits of stained glass, and here and there chunks of coloured plaster, the remains of apostolic or saintly images. One

laces. His left hand was gone, so that He hung aslant by the other. Both His legs had been blown off at the knees and His nose and mouth had been carried away by some flying shell-fragment or shrapnel-ball. All the graves had been thrown into confusion by the violence of innumerable explosions. Bits o

sehold articles. Others had been dispersed around. Others seemed to have been tipped up bodily, so that all their contents had been spilt into the street, and then to have been dropped back again with such an impact that they had collap

ns, wagons, and limbers lay overturned in the ditches. At one spot on the roadside the legs and buttocks of a man, all b

before the war had sheltered several thousands of people. Nothing remained except small bits

n. He lay at full length with arms outstretched and legs crossed. His left hand, immersed in a pool, was white and puffy. His right hand was half closed and only slightly wrinkled. His side had been ripped open and fragments of ent

months; others for several years, and of

ead out before us-miles and miles of low undulations ploughed by shell-fire and bared of

ength, in the distance, we saw a solitary fragment of a brick wall standing

We came to a litter of wreckage that had once been a village and then we left the main road and entered a little wood, or rather an ass

rats and two little heaps of clean bones were all that remained of them. The body was fully clothed and the legs encased in boots and puttees. One thigh-bone projected through

rojecting. But the rats had reached them all, and black, circular tunnels led down into the fetid depths of the ro

some relief to the feeling of oppression and despair whi

rn than complete ruins. There were more concrete shelters and then some rusty iron cranes and the site of a "Munitionslager" from which every shell had been removed. We app

odyards-Mastenlager, Pi-Park, Gruppenwegebaustofflager, Pferdesammelstelle, and others. Then a German military cemeter

r eyes good to see trees that were alive and unharmed. Their foliage was autumn-tinted-until now we had hardly realized that autum

ey formed continuous rows. A civilian passed by, pushing a wheelbarrow that cl

floorless, but the walls were unharmed except for occasional holes and scars. Then we suddenly realized that the Germans had stripped the e

treet in which the houses had not been r

Scribbled in chalk on a piece of board na

expected

wird stündli