of the grass was wonderfully refreshing to the eyes.
The cow had a beautiful coat of glossy brown that shone in the sunlight.
I abandoned myself to the charm of the little idyll that was spread out
before me and forgot the war once again.

And then all at once a gigantic, plume-shaped, sepia coloured mass rose
towering out of the ground. There was a rending, deafening, double
thunder-clap that seemed to split my head. For a moment I was dazed and
my ears sang. Then I looked up--the black mass was thinning and
collapsing. The cow had disappeared.

I walked into the yard full of rage and bitterness. All the men had left
the sheds and were flocking into the road. Some were strolling along in
leisurely fashion, some were walking with hurried steps, some were
running, some were laughing and talking, some looked startled, some
looked anxious, and some were very pale.

We crossed the road and the railway. Then, traversing several fields, we
came to a halt and waited. We waited for nearly an hour, but nothing
happened and we gradually straggled back to the yard.

Some of us walked to the spot where the shell had burst. There was a
huge hole, edged by a ring of heaped-up earth, and loose mould and
grassy sods lay scattered all round. Here and there lay big lumps of
bleeding flesh. The cow had been blown to bits. The larger pieces had
already been collected by the farmer, who had covered them with a
tarpaulin sheet from which a hoof protruded.

The next day, at about the same hour, the dark cloud again rose from the
ground and the double explosion followed. We again abandoned the yard
and waited in the field. But this time there were several further
shell-bursts. No dull boom in the distance followed by a long-drawn
whine, but only the earth and smoke thrown darkly up and then the
deafening double detonation.

The next day more shells came over, and the next day also.

The big holes with their earthen rims began to dot the fields in many
places. No damage of "military importance" had been done. Not even a
soldier had been killed, but only an inoffensive cow.

At night the sky was alive with the whirr of propellers, and shells
whistled overhead and burst a long way off.

One Sunday, toward the end of March, when we had a half-holiday, I
walked up the hill that was crowned by a large monastery and sat down
on the slope by a group of sallows. They were in full bloom. A swarm of
bees and flies were buzzing round. Peacock an