When I entered the village I found that it was as dead as Sodom. It stank like an open sewer. Into its streets mattresses, broken furniture, every kind of refuse, had been cast. It had evidently only recently been vacated by the enemy, for the signs of his going were everywhere. He must have surrendered it without firing a shot, for the only dead were his own soldiers, who had been killed by our bombardment, and one civilian woman with a little fair-haired child in her arms. I tied up my horse and with my groom entered several of the houses, thinking that we might find food to help us eke out our rations. The Hun, with a methodical orderliness which almost called for admiration, had anticipated our necessity and, even in the panic of his departure, had not left so much as a loaf of bread. Whatever he could not carry off he had polluted and rendered useless. The only food we found was in a Quartermaster’s store, where the Quartermaster, a man of immense proportions, sat huddled in a chair with a huge skull-wound in his forehead, contemplating a meal which he would never finish, over which the flies hummed a requiem. We examined the wells behind the houses; all except three of them had been filled with rubbish. We rode down to the river; here the stench we had noticed on entering grew nauseating. Everything that could render the water undrinkable had been flung into it; dead men, dead horses and indescribable offal. It was horrible, this irreverent use they had made of men who had been their comrades. While we watched the little river which yesterday had been so clean and happy, strangling between its grassy banks, we heard the jingling of swords and the sharp trit-trotting of horsemen approaching. Round a bend in the empty street came the first of our cavalry, their chargers side-stepping and prancing, and their men bending forward with an expression of smiling expectancy. They were the most gallant sight of a gallant, morning, these magnificent animals, dumb and human, who had waited throughout the war for their chance and now, like unleashed hounds, came running hot upon the scent, eager to prove their mettle. The sight of them was inspiring and instinct with intelligence; it lifted the mere toil of killing out of its monotony and into the rarer atmosphere of valour. They drew up by the river, but only for a moment. The dainty creatures lowered their muzzles to the water, screamed and jumped back, shaking their heads. They looked like high-born ladies, fresh from the toilet, scented and washed and contemptuous of anything that would soil their perfection. There was a look of inexhaustible youth about them, as though they had been pampered with the promise of unescapable immortality. With a hunting cry and a touch of the spur, they went bounding off through the shining weather, leaving behind a memory which set a standard. We were to see them not so many hours later, when their glory had been accomplished. IV