The burning colors died out in a
few minutes, and the fields darkened, and all the corn-shocks paled
until they became quite white, like rows of tents, under the harvest
moon. Another night had come in this year of war.
Up Ypres way the guns were busy, and at regular intervals the earth
trembled, and the air vibrated with dull, thunderous shocks.
"The moon's face looks full of irony to-night," said the man by my
side. "It seems to say, `What fools those creatures are down there,
spoiling their harvest-time with such a mess of blood!'"
The stars were very bright in some of those Flemish nights. I saw the
Milky Way clearly tracked across the dark desert. The Pleiades and
Orion's belt were like diamonds on black velvet. But among all these
worlds of light other stars, unknown to astronomers, appeared and
disappeared. On the road back from a French town one night I looked
Arras way, and saw what seemed a bursting planet. It fell with a
scatter of burning pieces. Then suddenly the thick cloth of the night
was rent with stabs of light, as though flashing swords were hacking
it, and a moment later a finger of white fire was traced along the
black edge of the far-off woods, so that the whole sky was brightened
for a moment and then was blotted out by a deeper darkness .
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