He had been drinking and was jovially
exhilarated. As soon as he saw the small silk American flag that
fluttered from the rail of our dogcart he and his friends became
enthusiastic in their greetings, offering us beer and wanting to know
whether the Americans meant to declare for Germany now that the Japanese
had sided with England.
Leaving them cheering for the Americans we negotiated another elbow in
the twisting street--and there all about us was the aftermath and
wreckage of a spirited fight.
Earlier in this chapter I told--or tried to tell--how La Buissiere must
have looked in peaceful times. I shall try now to tell how it actually
looked that afternoon we rode into it.
In the center of the town the main street opens out to form an irregular
circle, and the houses fronting it make a compact ring. Through a gap
one gets a glimpse of the little river which one has just crossed; and
on the river bank stands the mill, or what is left of it, and that is
little enough. Its roof is gone, shot clear away in a shower of
shattered tiling, and its walls are breached in a hundred places.
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