It appears to be only a bundle of clothes, a scarecrow that has tumbled among the grain it once protected.

But it gives a terrible meaning to the word "missing." When you read in the reports from the War Office that five thousand are "missing," you like to think of them safely cared for in a hospital or dragging out the period of the war as prisoners.

But the real missing are the unidentified dead.

In time some peasant will bury them, but he will not understand the purpose of the medal each wears around his neck.

And so, with the dead man will be buried his name and the number of his regiment.