The smell of Flemish villages--a mingled odor of sun-baked
thatch and bakeries and manure heaps and cows and ancient vapors
stored up through the centuries--was overborne by a new and more
pungent aroma which crept over the fields with the evening haze.
It was a sad, melancholy smell, telling of corruption and death. It
was the first breath of autumn, and I shivered a little. Must there be
another winter of war? The old misery of darkness and dampness was
creeping up through the splendor of September sunshine.
Those soldiers did not seem to smell it, or, if their nostrils were
keen, to mind its menace--those soldiers who came marching down the
road, with tanned faces. How fine they looked, and how hard, and how
cheerful, with their lot! Speak to them separately and every man would
"grouse" at the duration of the war and swear that he was "fed up"
with it. Homesickness assailed them at times with a deadly nostalgia.
The hammering of shell-fire, which takes its daily toll, spoiled their
temper and shook their nerves, as far as a British soldier had any
nerves, which I used to sometimes doubt, until I saw again the shell-
shock cases.
Pages:
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275