We moved off again; Semyonov, Trenchard, Marie Ivanovna and I were now sitting together.
We left the flat fields where we had been so busy.

Very slowly we began to climb the hill down which I had come this afternoon.

Behind me was a great fan of country, black now under a hidden moon, dead as though our retreat from it, depriving it of the last proofs of life, had flung it back into non-existence.

Before us was the black forest.
Not a sound save the roll of our wheels and, sometimes, a cry from one of the wounded soldiers, not a stir of wind....
I looked back.

Without an instant's warning that dead world, as a match is set to a waiting bonfire, broke into flame.