Seeing next the round, spiked helmets of the cannoneers outlined in that weird half-light, I knew of what those bobbing heads reminded me.

They were like pictures of Roman centurions.
Within a few minutes the afterglow lost its yellowish tone and burned as a deep red flare.

As we swung off into a side road the columns were headed right into that redness, and turning to black cinder-shapes as they rode.

It was as though they marched into a fiery furnace, treading the crimson paths of glory--which are not glorious and probably never were, but which lead most unerringly to the grave.
A week later, when we learned what had happened on the right wing, and of how the Germans had fared there under the battering of the Allies, the thought of that open furnace door came back to me.

I think of it yet-often..