i6 
LAND & WATER 
December 21, 1916 
trco trunks, towardis tlio edge of the wood. 11< IimI no 
chance now of gotting back, bullets were llvin.u ;ill nuind 
liini, lie was deafened by the incessant slioutins and liring, 
his comrades were still retiring in scattered groups, some 
standing behind trees and liring between forked liranches, 
others kneeling or lying, and then retiring again. 
As he ran, seeing no hope of life, yet desperatel\ anxious 
. to live, he saw about twenty yards from the wood's edge 
the ruined walls of a hut, making a circular mud rampart 
about two feet high, he took a Hying leap into tliis, and 
Hung himself flat, then he fired away as fast as he could. 
His hands trembled with excitement and rage, sweat 
Streamed into his eyes. A group of the enemy saw him 
and came racing across the open space between him and 
the wood. He brought down two of them as they came, 
then the rest were upon him, he stabbed and lunged 
furiously with the bayonet, careless of defence, and some 
went down, but the rest o\frwhelmed him, at last a 
bayonet went through him, he felt no pain, though he 
saw it in his own body ; he had once more a lightning 
vision of the grey cottage and the wet moor, tlien liiack- 
ness and silence 
Wounded and Alone 
After what seemed years of deep dreamless sleep, he 
opened his eyes and saw above him a thin crescent moon 
and millions of twinkling stars in a deep blue-black sky. 
He tried to remember where he was, and what had 
happened : nothing was clear to him. The shrill howling 
of jackals came faintly from a great distance, some small 
bats chirped as they llitted to and fro, showing dark against 
the glittering stars, there was no sovmd or suggestion of 
human beings, nothing visible but the wide dark sky 
.and the crumbling mud walls. Presently he moved, his 
right shoulder and arm were numb and throbbing with 
.pain, his tunic stiff and damp. He stood up with great 
<lifticulty and then he remembered everything, for in 
front of him lay three bodies, terrible with their rigid 
limbs, their wide-open e\'es glaring blindly. He imder- 
stood that he had killed, these men and the other two 
lay still and quiet half-way between him and the wood. 
Sorrow overcame him, sorrow for the death of these 
men, sorrow for his own weakness, the sorrow of all the 
world bowed him down with sadness and hopelessness ; 
he sank to his knees, falling forward with his forehead 
on the ground. 
At last, groping for his rifle, he rose again and staggered 
out towards the wood. He was very weak and his head 
swam, but using his rifle as a crutch, holding the muzzle 
with both hands, he managed to move along slowly, 
he went in the direction in which his comrades had been 
forced back, hoping to be able to pass the enemy's 
sentries before sunrise. When he had gone about half 
a mile, crawling along with infinite difficulty, resting 
very often, he caught a whif? of tobacco smoke, distinct 
. and unmistakable among the cool odours of the night, 
the clayej' scent of cool sand, and the many different 
fragrances of plants. 
Here the country was half cultivated, with a few 
scattered trees, and dry irrigation ditches dividing the 
land into squares. He lay down in one of these and 
silently waited, listening intently for a sound by which 
he might tell if the smoke came from the enemy or from 
his friends, for both used the same dry native" tobacco. 
It was almost certainly the enemy, for he had seen no 
sign whatever of any human being up to now, and could 
hardly have passed through their lines so easily, and. he 
knew that no sentry of his own party would dare to smoke 
while on duty. For a long time he lay still, pressed 
close to the cool earth, gazing anxiously at a group of dark 
trees under which he felt sure the sentry was posted. 
Kencath the trees was complete darkness,'vel\ety black, 
and impenetrable, the upper part of them and the open 
ground were silvered by the faint light of the crescent 
moon, and only a narrow black line of shadow ran along 
I one side of the straight ditch ; no glowing red cigarette 
end showed, yet the tobacco scent was there. 
The recruit decided to creep along the ditch, trusting 
that the sentry was only watching the ground in front 
and keeping no look out "behind him, and that the others 
were asleep. His arm and .shoulder caused him great 
pain, and made his progress even slower than it would 
have been, but no risks could be taken, the smallest 
noise might mean death to him. Keeping as flat as 
]>ossible, and in tlienarrowstripof shade, he crawled along 
till he was nearly opposite the trees, then he stopped and 
lay gathering up his strength for a last effort. Still he 
could see nothing and hear nothing, only the occasional 
faint scent of tobacco borne on some wandering night 
breeze. The sentry must move some time, he could no? 
be asleep, for then he could not smoke. At last a sound, 
a movement, the faint thud and rattle of a rifle butt on 
the ground. Tooking in the direction of this sound he 
made out the sentry, dimly dark against the dark sky, 
leaning between the forks of a tree, which divided itself 
into two close to the ground, the cigarette was carefully 
screened in his hand, he had e\idently no idea that an 
enemy was near. 
The recruit now crawled on with redoubled care, pausmg 
frequently, and glancing back at the sentry who loomed 
dim and tall against the sky, seeming taiUer than any 
human being as seen from the bottom of the ditch. He 
crept along with straight knees, propelling himself with 
his toes and his left elbow, his rifle carefully slung so as 
to lie along his back. His wounded shoulder and right 
arm hurt him very much, but if he could only get past 
the lines of the enemy, nothing would matter. In a few 
niinutes he was almost out of danger, the ditch now ran 
into a field of maize, the dry leaves and stalks screened 
him completely, and he crept along more quickly leaving 
the sentry further and further behind him. 
He rose to his. feet and hobbled along. The clouds of 
mist were growing whiter, and a pale light grew in the 
eastern sky ; soon the dark tree-tops stood clearly deiined 
above the mist, and -just as the sun's red edge showed 
between the tree trunks, he saw one of his own sentries 
standing motionless, leaning on his rifle with bent head, 
but as the recruit caflie slowly out of the field of maize, 
the silent figure looked up and covered him. " Halt," 
" Who goes there ? " He did not know the password or 
countersign, but crying " I^riend," he staggered towards 
him and then, weak from weariness and loss of blood, he 
fell to the ground. 
As he fell he saw again the grey stone cottage on the 
wind-swept moor, and the wet rain-soaked turf, and the 
tlri\c'n clouds, and was content. 
Braille and the Blind 
To the Editor of L.wd & W.\ter. 
Sir, — Will you allow me to ask your readers when deciding 
upon the direction whicli their charitable Christmas and New 
Year Gifts should take, to bear in mind the special require- 
ments of the National Institute for the Blind in regard to tlie 
preparation and printing of books in the Braille type, whicli 
are of particular use and interest to the soldiers and sailors 
who have lost their sight in the war, and at the same time 
of value to the general blind reading pubHc. 
Your space now-a-davs is so limited that I will not en- 
large upon the subject further than to say that the Braille 
books produced by the ^s'ational Institute for the Blind must, 
on account of their bulk, the expensive processes involved- 
rendered doubly or in some cases trebly more expensive by 
the increase in cost of the materials— and the low price at 
whicli they are sold, be produced at a very considerable loss. 
I hoi>c that many of your readers will be led by these few 
lines to send a contribution in aid ol this department of our 
^^'ovk, Arthur Pe.\rso\, 
President National Institute for the Blind, 
226, Great Portland Street, W. 
The Paddington Green Children's Hospital we are told, 
must close early next year unless tlie debt of £4,000 can be 
l)aid off and a balance provided to go on with. The debt is 
owing to the falling off of subscriptions and donations. No 
.other hospital in Paddington can now take children, and the 
distress it would cause were it closed would be tremendous, 
for there are over 50,000 yearly attendances. 
The latest volume of the " Country Life " library. The Siorv 
of the Middlesex Regiment, by Charles L. Kingsford (7s. 6(1. 
net) is not only a record of "the various campaigns in whicli 
the Middlesex Regiment has taken part, but also an account 
of the life and doings of the regiment in times of peace. The 
regiment is composed of the 57th and 77111 Foot, and the author 
has been at pains to get the records of these two units and 
combine them in this present work, which is accurate, con- 
cise, and fairly complete, carr.ving the history of the regiment 
from the origin of the 57th Foot, prc\ious to the Seven Years 
War, down to events in Flanders and (lallipoli in 1915. 
