His spirit was in a flame
of revolt against the misery of his sleeplessness, filth, and imminent
peril of death. Every shell that burst near Henin sent a shudder
through him. I stayed an hour in his hut, and then went away toward
Neuville-Vitasse with harassing fire following along the way. I looked
back many times to the valley, and to the ridges where the enemy lived
above it, invisible but deadly. The sun was setting and there was a
tawny glamour in the sky, and a mystical beauty over the landscape
despite the desert that war had made there, leaving only white ruins
and slaughtered trees where once there were good villages with church
spires rising out of sheltering woods. The German gunners were doing
their evening hate. Crumps were bursting heavily again amid our gun
positions.
Heninel was not a choice spot. There were other places of extreme
unhealthfulness where our men had fought their way up to the
Hindenburg line, or, as the Germans called it, the Siegfried line.
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