broken globe. Sick and infirm people were dragged and sboved along by the older children: a goitred idiot sat in a wheel-barrow pushed by a girl, and laughed and pulled its tongue. . . .
In among the throng Troy began to see the torn blue uniforms of wounded soldiers limping on bandaged legs. . . . Others too, not wounded, elderly haggard territorials, with powder-black faces, bristling beards, and the horror of the shell-roar in their eyes. . . . One of them stopped near Troy, and in a thick voice begged for a drink . . . just a drop of anything, for God's sake. Others followed, pleading for food and drink. "Gas, gas . . ." a young artilleryman gasped at him through distorted lips. . . . The Germans were over the Marne, they told him, the Germans were coming. It was hell back there, no one could stand it.
Troy ransacked the ambulance, found
