This sheet of iron was silver in the moonlight and stood out with its
solitary black support against the night sky, which was now breaking
into a million stars. Behind it stretched a flat plain that reached to
the horizon.
"There," I said to Trenchard, "there's your first glimpse of actual
warfare. What do you say to every house in your village at home like
that? It's ghastly enough if you see it as I have done, still smoking,
with the looking-glasses and flower-pots and pictures lying about."
But Trenchard said nothing.
We started across the plain and at once, as with "Childe Roland":
_For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backward a last view
O'er the safe road, 'twas gone! grey plain all round:
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.
I might go on; nought else remained to do._
Our "safe road" was a rough and stony track; far in front of us on the
rising hill that bounded the horizon a red light watched us like an
angry eye.
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