I remember John Masefield said one day it looked to him like a post-impressionist table-cloth; later, white zigzagging lines were cut all through it--trenches.
In the spring of 1917 it was strange motoring out from Amiens to Albert.

Just beyond this valley everything changed.

Suddenly one felt oneself in another world.

Before this point one drove through ordinary natural country, with women and children and men working in the fields; cows, pigs, hens and all the usual farm belongings.

Then, before one could say "Jack Robinson!" not another civilian, not another crop, nothing but a vast waste of land; no life, except Army life; nothing but devastation, desolation and khaki..