There wasn't a dog left of the former life of Dompierre. There was not
even much war traffic that morning on the worn and muddy road. The guns
muttered some miles away to the west, and a lark sang. But a little way
farther on up the road was an intermediate dressing station, rigged up
with wood and tarpaulins, and orderlies were packing two wounded men
into an ambulance. The men on the stretchers were grey faced, as though
they had been trodden on by some gigantic dirty boot.
As we came back towards where our car waited by the cemetery I heard
the jingle of a horseman coming across the space behind us. I turned and
beheld one of the odd contrasts that seem always to be happening in
this incredible war. This man was, I suppose, a native officer of some
cavalry force from French north Africa. He was a handsome dark brown
Arab, wearing a long yellow-white robe and a tall cap about which ran
a band of sheepskin. He was riding one of those little fine lean horses
with long tails that I think are Barbary horses, his archaic saddle rose
fore and aft of him, and the turned-up toes of his soft leather boots
were stuck into great silver stirrups. He might have ridden straight
out of the Arabian nights. He passed thoughtfully, picking his way
delicately among the wire and the shell craters, and coming into
the road, broke into a canter and vanished in the direction of the
smashed-up refinery.
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