We couldn’t bring the horses back; the Indian Cavalry took some, but the rest, we shot them there, in France and Egypt and in Palestine. Blokes did their own or you did a mate’s: lazy walk over the dunes, last nose-bag, reproachful eye, squeeze the trigger … Our mob did the others a hundred at a time. Men ground their teeth; didn’t seem right: rifle-sights on pack-horse, steady mount, just below the ears; teams that hauled gun, limber, crew and shells through hell and back; What the Hun or the Turk couldn’t do, we did ourselves. The army salted the…