PROLOGUE xiii 



sweeping to close and hold a fleck of silver 

 cloud, and then move on. . . . 



Our car is waiting, its great head-lights 

 call us, guiding a way between the trunks of 

 apple-trees. . . . We glide through the 

 ruined village, past the sleeping camp, its 

 tents now grey and silent — on up the winding 

 road, higher and higher, then open country, 

 a vast tableland. Darkness behind us. 

 Eastward the far-flung skyline slashed with 

 unnatural light, the glare that ebbs and flows 

 unceasingly^ the distant star -shells points 

 of floating flame, the muflled thunder of 

 the guns. 



The sound grows nearer. We touch the 

 fringe of desolation — heaped ruin that was 

 once a human^ kindly place. Just one — re- 

 sembling countless others. A ghost-town, that 

 no words can paiiit — dark, horrible, and still 

 beneath the stars. The throbbing of the guns 

 can only punctuate this silence. The sight- 

 less streets seem endless, monotonous their 



