The clouds above their heads were built up to a great height, rocky and
cavernous; crows swung on outspread wings, dived and alighted heavily on
the earth like fowls. They came behind the old German lines, and the
road changing led them through short patches of covering woods filled
with instruments. Depot after depot was piled between the trees and the
notices hanging from the branches chattered antique directions at them.
"The drinking trough--the drinking trough!" cried one, but they had no
horse to water. "Take this path!" urged another, "for the...." but they
flew by too fast to read the end of the message, while the path pursued
them a little way among the pines, then turned abruptly away. "Do not
smoke here ... _Nicht rauchen_," "NICHT RAUCHEN," "_Rauchen streng
verboten_," cried the notices, in furious impotent voices. The wood
chattered and spat with cries, with commands for which the men who made
them cared no longer. The hungry noses of old guns snuffed at the car as
it rolled by, guns dragging still upon their flanks the torn cloak of
camouflage--small squat guns which stared idly into the air, or with
wider mouths still, like petrified dogs for ever baying at the
moon--long slim guns which lay along the grass and pushing
undergrowth--and one gun which had dipped forward and, fallen upon its
knees, howled silenced imprecations at the devil in the centre of
the earth.
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