“The moon’s face looks full of irony tonight,” said the man by my side. “It seems to say, ‘What fools those creatures are down there, spoiling their harvest-time with such a mess of blood!’ ”

The stars were very bright in some of those Flemish nights. I saw the Milky Way clearly tracked across the dark desert. The Pleiades and Orion’s belt were like diamonds on black velvet. But among all these worlds of light other stars, unknown to astronomers, appeared and disappeared. On the road back from a French town one night I looked Arras way, and saw what seemed a bursting planet. It fell with a scatter of burning pieces. Then suddenly the thick cloth of the night was rent with stabs of light, as though flashing swords were hacking it, and a moment later a finger of white fire was traced along the black edge of the far-off woods, so that the whole sky was brightened for a moment and then was blotted out by a deeper darkness⁠ ⁠… Arras was being shelled again, as I saw it many times in those long years of war.