he bricks and groundsel.

It is the Abomination of Desolation, not seen by prophecy far off in
some fabulous future, nor remembered from terrible ages by the aid
of papyrus and stone, but fallen on our own century, on the homes of
folk like ourselves: common things that we knew are become the relics
of bygone days. It is our own time that has ended in blood and broken
bricks.

In An Old Drawing-Room

There was one house with a roof on it in Peronne. And there an
officer came by moonlight on his way back from leave. He was looking
for his battalion which had moved and was now somewhere in the
desolation out in front of Peronne, or else was marching there--no
one quite knew. Someone said he had seen it marching through
Tincourt; the R.T.O. said Brie. Those who did not know were always
ready to help, they made suggestions and even pulled out maps. Why
should they not? They were giving away no secret, because they did
not know, and so they followed a soldier's natural inclination to
give all the help they could to another soldier. Therefore they
offered their suggestions like old friends. They had never met
before, might never meet again; but La France introduces you, and
five minute acquaintance in a place like Peronne, where things may
change so profoundly in one night, and where all is so tense by the
strange background of ruin that little portions of time seem very
valuable, five minutes there seem quite a long time. And so they are,
for what may not happen in five minutes any day now in France. Five
minutes may be a page of history, a chapter even, perhaps a volume.
Little children with inky fingers years hence may sit for a whole
hour trying to learn up and remember just what happened during five
minutes in France some time about now. These are just reflections
such as pass through the mind in the moonlight among vast ruins and
are at once forgotten.

Those that knew where the battalion was that the wandering officer
looked for were not many; these were reserved and spoke like one that
has a murder on his conscience, not freely and openly: for of one
thing no one speaks in France, and that is the exact position of a
unit. One may wave one's hand vaguely eastwards and say "Over
there,", but to name a village and the people that occupy it is to
offend against the silence that in these days broods over France, the
solemn hush befitting so vast a tragedy.

And in the end it seemed better to that officer