He got to Rail Head just before eight, hot and perspiring from a rapid walk in full kit under a July sun. An immense drum-fire was thundering from the north. The Division was under orders to proceed there in two days. There was to be another great offensive at Ypres. He shuddered, thinking of the showers of bursting metal, flogging and churning the ground, shearing and rending human flesh, the immense concourse of detonations hammering on human nerves. The R.T.O. gave him directions and he got into a waiting train. It was empty, except for a small group of leave men at the other end. He did not join them, glad of a little solitude. The German heavies gave him a last amiable farewell. They began dropping shells on Rail Head. That sickening apprehension of the explosion came on him, and he felt sure that a shell would fall on his carriage before the train left. He fought the apprehension savagely, as if the only thing he wanted to do in life was to repress his fear reflex. The shells came over one at a time of regular intervals of a minute. He listened for them, sweating, and gripping his rifle. Either let the train start or get it over. The train waited interminably. ZwiiING, CRASH! to the right. ZwiiING, CRASH! to the left; ZwiiING, CRASH! to the right; ZwiiING, CRASH! to the left. He sat there alone for thirty-five minutes—thirty-five ZwiiING, CRASH! It was somehow more awful than drum-fire, a more penetrating torture. At last the train started and puffed slowly out of the station. Winterbourne sat quite still, listening to the Crashes growing fainter and fainter as the train gathered speed. At last they disappeared altogether in the rattle of wheels. In place of the long slow crawl coming up, the train clattered along at great speed. He passed undamaged stations, thronged with French peasants, French soldiers on leave and British troops; he saw the lovely Corot poplars and willows shimmering in the sun as they wavered in the light breeze; there were cows in the fields, and he noticed yellow iris in the wet ditches and tall white hog’s parsley. A field of red clover and white daisies made him think of the old days at Martin’s Point. An immense effort of imagination was needed to link himself now with himself then. He looked almost with curiosity at his familiar khaki and rifle—so strange that ten years later that boy should be a soldier. Then he noticed that he had forgotten to sheath his bayonet. It had been fixed so long that he had to wrench it off. There was a little ring of rust round the bayonet boss. He got out his oily rag and anxiously cleaned it. The bayonet sheath was so full of dried mud that he had to clean that too.