He followed the stream until it joined a river, not a very wide river as yet, but Private Percy was a country boy and knew there would be crayfish under the river bank. And in half an hour said crayfish were cooking merrily, and never had he seen such big ones! And so many! And so juicy! He ate until it hurt, twirling his catch on a green stick over his hastily built fire and tearing them apart with his hands. He thought now: Perhaps I really am dead and have gone to heaven. And that is good enough for me, because, O Lord, I believe I have seen enough of hell.

That night he lay in a glade by the river, with his kit bag for a pillow. And as the stars came out in the sky, more brilliant than he had ever seen, Percy began to sing ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag’. He fell silent before finishing the song, and slept the sleep of the just.

When the sunshine touched his face again, Percy woke, refreshed, sat up — and froze, motionless as a statue, before the calm gazes that inspected him. There were a dozen of the fellows in a row, watching him.

Who were they? What were they? They looked a bit like bears, but not with bear faces, or a bit like monkeys, only fatter. And they were just watching him placidly. Surely they couldn’t be French?

He tried French anyway. ‘Parley buffon say?’

They stared at him blankly.

In the silence, and feeling that something more was expected of him, Percy cleared his throat and plunged into ‘Pack Up Your Troubles.’

The fellows listened with rapt attention until he had finished. Then they looked at one another. Eventually, as if some agreement had been reached, one of them stepped forward and sang the song back at Percy, pitch perfect.

Private Percy listened with blank astonishment.

And, a century later:

The prairie was flat, green, rich, with scattered stands of oaks. The sky above was blue as generally advertised. On the horizon there was movement, like the shadow of a cloud: a vast herd of animals on the move.