Shrapnel now could
be distinctly heard at no great distance, with its hiss, its snap of
sound, and sometimes rifle-shots like the crack of a ball on a cricket
bat broke through the thickets. They separated, spreading like beaters
in a long line: "Soon," Trenchard told me, "I was quite alone. I
could hear sometimes the breaking of a twig or a stumbling footfall
but I might have been alone at the end of the world. It was obvious
that the regimental sanitars had been there before us because there
were many new roughly made graves. There were letters too and post
cards lying about all heavy with wet and dirt. I picked up some of
these--letters from lovers and sisters and brothers. One letter I
remember in a large baby-hand from a boy to his father telling him
about his lessons and his drill, 'because he would soon be a soldier.'
One letter, too, from a girl to her lover saying that she had had a
dream and knew now that her 'dear Franz, whom she loved with all her
soul, would return to her!.
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