Unhappy Far-Off Things | Page 8

the huge barrel alone.
Dark old steps near the orchard run down into a dug-out, with a
cartridge-case tied to a piece of wood beside it to beat when the gas
came. A telephone wire lies listlessly by the opening. A patch of
Michaelmas daisies, deep mauve and pale mauve, and a bright yellow
flower beside them, show where a garden used to stand near by. Above
the dug-out a patch of jagged earth shows in three clear layers under the
weeds: four inches of grey road metal, imported, for all this country is
chalk and clay; two inches of flint below it, and under that an inch of a
bright red stone. We are looking then at a road--a road through a village
trodden by men and women, and the hooves of horses and familiar
modern things, a road so buried, so shattered, so overgrown, showing
by chance an edge in the midst of the wilderness, that I could seem
rather to have discovered the track of the Dinosaur in prehistoric clays
than the highway, of a little village that only five years ago was full of
human faults and joys and songs and tiny tears. Down that road before
the plans, of the Kaiser began to fumble with the earth, down that
road--but it is useless to look back, we are too far away from five years

ago, too far away from thousands of ordinary things, that never seemed
as though they would ever peer at us over chasms of time, out of
another age, utterly far off, irrevocably removed from our ways and
days. They are gone, those times, gone like the Dinosaur; gone with
bows and arrows and the old knightlier days. No splendour marks their
sunset where I sit, no dignity of houses, or derelict engines of war,
mined all equally are scattered dirtily in the mud, and common weeds
overpower them; it is not ruin but rubbish that covers the ground here
and spreads its untidy flood for hundreds and hundreds of miles.
A band plays in Arras, to the north and east the shells go thumping on.
The very origins of things are in doubt, so much is jumbled together. It
is as hard to make out just where the trenches ran, and which was
No-Man's-Land, as it is to tell the houses from garden and orchard and
road: the rubbish covers all. It is as though the ancient forces of Chaos
had come back from the abyss to fight against order and man, and
Chaos had won. So lies this village of France.
As I left it a rat, with something in its mouth, holding its head high, ran
right across the village.

The Real Thing
Once at manoeuvres as the Prussian Crown Prince charged at the head
of his regiment, as sabres gleamed, plumes streamed, and hooves
thundered behind him, he is reported to have said to one that galloped
near him: "Ah, if only this were the real thing!"
One need not doubt that the report is true. So a young man might feel
as he led his regiment of cavalry, for the scene would fire the blood; all
those young men and fine uniforms and good horses, all coming on
behind, everything streaming that could float on the air, everything
jingling then which could ever make a sound, a bright sky no doubt
over the uniforms, a good fresh wind for men and horses to gulp; and
behind, the clinking and jingling, the long roll of hooves thundering.
Such a scene might well stir emotions to sigh for the splendours of
battle.
This is one side of war. Mutilation and death are another; misery, cold
and dirt; pain, and the intense loneliness of men left behind by armies,
with much to think of; no hope, and a day or two to live. But we
understand that glory covers that.

There is yet a third side.
I came to Albert when the fight was far from it: only at night you saw
any signs of war, when clouds flashed now and then and curious
rockets peered. Albert robbed of peace was deserted even by war.
I will not say that Albert was devastated or desolate, for these long
words have different interpretations and may easily be exaggerated. A
German agent might say to you, "Devastated is rather a strong word,
and desolate is a matter of opinion." And so you might never know
what Albert is like.
I will tell you what I saw.
Albert was a large town. I will not write of all of it.
I sat down near a railway bridge at the edge of the town; I think I was
near the station; and small houses had stood there with little gardens;
such as porters and other