With visibility being so bad, Robert wonders if the men following are lost. He can play the bugle but declined to join the military band because he wouldn't actually be fighting the war if he did. Riding with Robert is Bugler Willie Poole. The man believes Robert is English and says “Maudit Anglais!” (cursed English) to him. When he is approached by a Flemish peasant he is convinced the man is speaking gibberish. Robert finds the Flemish language incomprehensible. Robert's destination is a place called Wytsbrouk, about a mile from the front. Men and their horses sink in it, dying, making it contaminated. All around Ypres are the flats of Flanders, which are full of mud. They are making their way to the front in Belgium. On both sides of it are ditches filled with fetid water. He cannot discern anything at either end of this road. He is on a road covered in fog and smoke. Findley begins describing the setting of the war itself: “There is no good picture of this except the one you can make in your mind.” Robert has been in France for a month and two days.
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