There were many children.

Two gendarmes guarded them with rough friendly discipline.

I thought that I had seen nothing more terrible at the war than the eager pitiful docility with which they moved to and fro in obedience to the gendarmes' orders.

A dreadful, broken, creeping submission....
But it was their fantasy, their coloured incredible unreality that overwhelmed me.

The building, black and twisted against the hard blue sky, raised its head behind us like a malicious monster.