Over this village, once so neat and trim, as he could easily see, war had swept in its most hideous fashion.
Houses were riddled and the gray light showed through them from wall to wall where the great shells had passed.

A bronze statue standing in a fountain in the center of the little place or square had been struck, and it lay prone and shattered in the water.
The first flakes of the new snow began to fall, and the sinister sky, heavy with clouds, took on the darkness of twilight, although night was far away.

Yet the huge rents and holes in the houses and the fallen masonry seemed to grow more distinct in the gloom.

The village consisted chiefly of one long street, and as John looked up and down it, he did not see a single human being.

Nothing was visible to him but the iron hoof of war crushing everything under it, and he shuddered violently.
The snow began to drive, whipped by a bitter wind, and he drew the heavy blue overcoat closely about him.