He was new to his work and liked the adventure of it⁠—that was before his men were blown to bits around him and he was sent down as a tragic case of shell-shock⁠—and as we walked through the village of Kemmel he chatted cheerfully about his work and life and found it topping. His bright, luminous eyes were undimmed by the scene around him. He walked in a jaunty, boyish way through that ruined place. It was not a pleasant place. Kemmel village, even in those days, had been blown to bits, except where, on the outskirts, the château with its racing-stables remained untouched⁠—“German spies!” said the boy⁠—and where a little grotto to Our Lady of Lourdes was also unscathed. The church was battered and broken, and there were enormous shell-pits in the churchyard and open vaults where old dead had been tumbled out of their tombs. We walked along a sunken road and then to a barn in open fields. The roof was pierced by shrapnel bullets, which let in the rain on wet days and nights, but it was cozy otherwise in the room above the ladder where the officers had their mess. There were some homemade chairs up there, and Kirchner prints of naked little ladies were tacked up to the beams, among the trench maps, and round the fireplace where logs were burning was a canvas screen to let down at night. A gramophone played merry music and gave a homelike touch to this parlor in war.