They were approaching the Belgian border. On the evening of the 3rd of November Winterbourne with about twenty men rushed into the village of K——, just as the Germans hastily retreated from the other end. He had been ordered to occupy the place if possible, and to arrange billets. He lodged his Company, placed guards and pickets and then went through the cellars. The Germans were experts in placing booby-traps which would explode if carelessly moved, and Winterbourne did not know whether there might not be men concealed in the cellars to take them unawares. He went down into cellar after cellar with his electric torch, and was soon re-assured. The Germans had fled in such haste that they had left their rifles and equipment in several cellars. The floors were strewn with straw. On a table he found a half-finished letter, abandoned in the middle of a sentence. In another a large black dog lay dead—its owner had killed it with a bullet rather than leave it to possible ill-treatment. * * * * * The Colonel explained the dispositions for the coming battle over a map. The conference of officers took notes of the orders which were very elaborate, but precise and clear. It was nearly half-past three when they had finished, and zero hour was six-thirty. Winterbourne had been on foot since five the morning before. His eyes smarted with lack of sleep, and his mind was so dulled that he could scarcely comprehend and write down his orders. He misspelled words as he scrawled down notes in shaking deformed handwriting. He puzzled a long time over map-references, and irritated the Colonel by repeatedly asking questions. They had an hour before they moved out to their battle positions. The other officers hurried away to snatch an hour’s sleep. Winterbourne felt utterly sleepy, but quite unable to sleep. The thought of another battle, even with the dispirited and defeated German rear-guard, filled him with shrinking dread. How face another barrage? He tried to write letters to Fanny and Elizabeth, but his mind kept wandering away and he could not collect his thoughts sufficiently to string together a few banal sentences. He sat on a chair brought him by his servant, with his head in his hands, staring at the straw and the dead black dog. He had only one thought—peace. He must at least have peace. He was at the very end of his endurance, had used up the last fraction of his energy and strength. He wished he was one of the skeletons lying on Hill 91, an anonymous body among the corpses lying outside in the street. He had not even the courage to shoot himself with his revolver; and added that last grain of self-contempt to his despair. * * * * *