NORMAN LESLIE FROM THE RIVER On that night I slept soft, and woke oft, being utterly foredone.

In the grey dawn I awoke, and gave a little cough, when, lo! there came a hot sweet gush into my mouth, and going to the window, I saw that I was spitting of blood, belike from my old wound.

It is a strange thing that, therewith, a sickness came over me, and a cold fit as of fear, though fear I had felt none where men met in heat of arms.

None the less, seeing that to-day, or never, I was to be made or marred, I spoke of the matter neither to man nor woman, but drinking a long draught of very cold water, I spat some deal more, and then it stanched, and I armed me and sat down on my bed.
My thoughts, as I waited for the first stir in the house, were not glad.
Birds were singing in the garden trees; all else was quiet, as if men were not waking to slay each other and pass unconfessed to their account.
There came on me a great sickness of war.

Yesterday the boulevard of Les Augustins, when the fight was over, had been a shambles; white bodies that had been stripped of their armour lay here and there like sheep on a hillside, and were now smirched with dust, a thing unseemly.