here up the road. I found a
stretcher and went off with them to look for him.

We went on and on up the road. It couldn't have been more than a few
hundred yards, really, if as much; but it felt like going on and on; it
seemed impossible to find that house.

* * * * *

There was something odd about that short stretch of grey road and the
tall trees at the end of it and the turn. These things appeared in a
queer, vivid stillness, as if they were not there on their own account,
but stood in witness to some superior reality. Through them you were
somehow assured of Reality with a most singular and overpowering
certainty. You were aware of the possibility of an ensuing agony and
horror as of something unreal and transitory that would break through
the peace of it in a merely episodical manner. Whatever happened to come
round the turn of the road would simply not matter.

And with your own quick movements up the road there came that steadily
mounting thrill which is not excitement, or anything in the least like
excitement, because of its extreme quietness. This thrill is apt to
cheat you by stopping short of the ecstasy it seems to promise. But this
time it didn't stop short; it became more and more steady and more and
more quiet in the swing of its vibration; it became ecstasy; it became
intense happiness.

It lasted till we reached the little plantation by the roadside.

While it lasted you had the sense of touching Reality at its highest
point in a secure and effortless consummation; so far were you from
being strung up to any pitch.

Then came the plantation.

Behind the plantation, on a railway siding, a train came up from Lokeren
with yet another load of wounded. And in the train there was confusion
and agitation and fear. Belgian Red Cross men hung out by the doors of
the train and clamoured excitedly for stretchers. There was only one
stretcher, the one we had brought from the village.

Somebody complained bitterly: "_C'est mal arrange. Avec les Allemands
sur nos dos!_"

Somebody tried to grab our one stretcher. The two bearers seemed
inclined to give it up. Nobody knew where our badly wounded man was.
Nobody seemed very eager now to go and look for him. We three were
surrounded and ordered to give up our stretcher. No use wasting time in
hunting for one man, with the Germans on our backs.

None of the men we were helping out of the train were seriously hurt. I
had to choo