out of the trench and going along at the level of normal things. Ghosts of soldiers plummeted out of the smoke up to the right and tottered screaming along, falling to their knees, their hands around their throats like those funnymen in the music halls that would pretend to be being strangled and it was their own hands at their necks doing the throttling. Now there was no question of order or retreat; the soldiers that had not had a dance with the smoke just went tearing away towards what they hoped was safety. After some hundreds of yards they reached one of the advance batteries who without a word caught the horror in their faces and began to shout and pull and jostle to try to get up the horses quickly to bring off the guns, for it would be a fearsome disaster to let guns be captured. But it was all aspiration, when the scores and scores of suffering men were beheld, staggering towards them like an insane enemy, the artillery men scarpered too; there was nothing else to be done. Anyone that lingered tasted the smoke, felt the sharp tines in his throat raking and gashing, and he was undone. Now and then miraculously a man seemed to run unscathed from the gloom, running all the faster for his escape. Rifles were scattered now across the pounded fields, as if some proper battle were being fought after all.
Willie Dunne ran with the rest. There was a bottleneck ahead where the ground had been fought over a few weeks back and the men had to get up on a rough road to make any progress at all. This, of course, engendered the wild fear of being prevented from escaping at all, and still the vile smoke came on behind. Men were slushing into craters to try to swim across and could not get up the other blessed side. No act of virtue or rescue was possible; every man had to do for himself.
Now three or four battalions seemed to be mixing themselves together: there were the remnants of the Algerians and some regular French soldiers and the Fusiliers themselves and there were lads from some Lincolnshire regiments that must have been driven across from the left. Everyone was gripped by the same remorseless impulse: to flee the site of nameless death. If it were a battle proper, these men would never have turned tail. They would have fought to the last man in the trenches and put up with that and cursed their fate. But it was the force of something they did not know that drove them shoving and gasping away from that long, long monster with yellow skin.
There were officers now along the road trying in a bewildered and puzzled fashion to get the men to turn around. They did not know what was happening and all they saw was men that seemed to be deserting wholesale. A rout like this was unheard of, unless a man was a veteran of the terrible push back from Mons to the Marne in the first months of the war. Battalions in reserve had to conclude that there had been some mighty breakthrough by the Hun, but this seemed entirely mysterious, as no one had received the least message in this direction, and no massed bombardment had been heard and endured. Furthermore, no bullets even followed the retreating and desperate men.
Now a weakened version of the stench seemed to be everywhere. It was getting into every niche and nook in creation, into ears and eyes, into mouse-holes and rat-holes.
But the danger then was at last passing. Men dropped where they found themselves, soaked in sweat, already exhausted men further exhausted by such a hard gallop across ruined ground. Willie Dunne was visited by a tiredness so deep he lay where he had fallen and plummeted further into a dreamless sleep.
He awoke to a yellow world. His first thought was that he was dead. It was the small hours of the morning and there were still torches and lights being used. Long lines of men were going back along the road, with weird faces, their right hand on the right shoulder of the man in front, about forty men in a chain sometimes. He thought horribly of the Revelation of
Willie Dunne ran with the rest. There was a bottleneck ahead where the ground had been fought over a few weeks back and the men had to get up on a rough road to make any progress at all. This, of course, engendered the wild fear of being prevented from escaping at all, and still the vile smoke came on behind. Men were slushing into craters to try to swim across and could not get up the other blessed side. No act of virtue or rescue was possible; every man had to do for himself.
Now three or four battalions seemed to be mixing themselves together: there were the remnants of the Algerians and some regular French soldiers and the Fusiliers themselves and there were lads from some Lincolnshire regiments that must have been driven across from the left. Everyone was gripped by the same remorseless impulse: to flee the site of nameless death. If it were a battle proper, these men would never have turned tail. They would have fought to the last man in the trenches and put up with that and cursed their fate. But it was the force of something they did not know that drove them shoving and gasping away from that long, long monster with yellow skin.
There were officers now along the road trying in a bewildered and puzzled fashion to get the men to turn around. They did not know what was happening and all they saw was men that seemed to be deserting wholesale. A rout like this was unheard of, unless a man was a veteran of the terrible push back from Mons to the Marne in the first months of the war. Battalions in reserve had to conclude that there had been some mighty breakthrough by the Hun, but this seemed entirely mysterious, as no one had received the least message in this direction, and no massed bombardment had been heard and endured. Furthermore, no bullets even followed the retreating and desperate men.
Now a weakened version of the stench seemed to be everywhere. It was getting into every niche and nook in creation, into ears and eyes, into mouse-holes and rat-holes.
But the danger then was at last passing. Men dropped where they found themselves, soaked in sweat, already exhausted men further exhausted by such a hard gallop across ruined ground. Willie Dunne was visited by a tiredness so deep he lay where he had fallen and plummeted further into a dreamless sleep.
He awoke to a yellow world. His first thought was that he was dead. It was the small hours of the morning and there were still torches and lights being used. Long lines of men were going back along the road, with weird faces, their right hand on the right shoulder of the man in front, about forty men in a chain sometimes. He thought horribly of the Revelation of
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