14 
LAND & WATER 
November 8, 191 7 
two of the limping figures would fall in the road, and lie where 
they fell. At such times, or rather a moment before, some 
of the figures would diurt for the shelter of the poplars and 
behind the trunks ; it was tlie slower ones who fell. In the 
distance, about hall a mile away, was ;i solitary figure movjng 
so slowly that lie hardly seemed to move at all. and executmg 
as he went a kind of clog dance, making no atttompt to dodge 
the shells whicii fell around him. A soldier passed ; his right 
arm hung uselessly down, and the side of his face nearest the 
captain was plastered with coagulated blood. Stretcher- 
bearers were nowhere visible. This surprised the captain the 
less as he knew tliat every battalion detail who could carry 
anything was carrying on with a rifle. 
As the morning advanced, the omens darkened. The 
units of the (ierman armies in front of the sunken road that 
cut the road to iMenin at right angles through Gheluvelt 
were thrusting forward like the fingers of a gigantic out- 
stretched hand, and in the naiTow spaces between each pair 
of fingers each British battalion was being slowly squeezed 
to death. Such w^s the picture which presented itself to 
the Battery Commander's imagination as he pieced together 
the fragments of intelligence that came in at frequent intei"vals 
and were passed along, some formally in a bewildering series 
of orders, others informally in hurried scraps of conversation 
that passed like missiles from one mounted officer to another 
as they met, saluted, and. went their ways. That the staft 
was hard put to it was obvious ; cooks left their field-kitchens, 
A.S.C. men their lorries and were hurried up to the front 
with rifles to take their places in the firing line. There were 
no reser\'es left. 
The captain looked at the four guns in their turf em- 
placements. In the last forty-eight hours he had shortened 
liis fuses from four to two thousand yards ; every H.Q- 
message calling upon him to engage a new target had in- 
dicated an objective that was getting nearer and nearer. 
I he guns were now firing over an arc of ninety degrees, sweep- 
ing tlie (ierman front, and the range was little more than a mile. 
The enemy advance was creeping on like an oil-slain and, if 
the reports that our centre was being driven in were true, in 
no long time his gunners would be shot down where they 
stood and the guns turned on our own infantry in retreat. 
He ran his eye rapidly over the vital parts of the guns, and as 
it rested orreach part he thought out all the orders he might 
have to give in the hour of e-xtremity. There were the sights, 
their brass-work glinting in the sun ; with a blow from one 
of the spades strapped behind the shield he could smash their 
delicate mechanism. There was the breech-loading wedge, 
fitting like the back of a watch ; it might be possible to dent 
the edges. At the back of it was the striker plug ; if he 
unscrewed that, he could fire a rifle-bullet into the opening. 
There was the elevating-gear ; a hand-spike through its 
diminutive wheel would settle that main-spring of the gun 
for ever. Or he could take out the bolt below the muzzle 
which secured the piston-rod and fire a last round at high angle 
in the direction of the enemy and with the gun's recoil the 
shock would dismount her. But to lay violent hands on the 
guns that had served him so well was a counsel of despair, 
and for the moment he put it from him. At all costs he 
must save them. 
As he meditated on these things, he heard a loud droning 
hum overhead. He looked up between the smooth oval 
leaves of a beech-tree. A Taube aeroplane was flying over 
the wood, the black iron crosses clearlj- marked on its 
diaphanous wings, and as it pas.sed on it dropped a white 
fire-ball. He know' what that meant. In no long time the 
riglit section of his batterj' might be knocked out by a direct 
hit. He rode back to the gun-teams a few hundred yards 
away to warn tlicm to prepare to go up to the guns at a 
moment's notice. He found them grouped where he had left 
them tlie day before, some of the horses off-saddled and the 
drivers massaging their backs with the flat of the hand. He 
ran his eye rapidly over the teams ; they mustered the same 
strength as overnight. If they sustained no more casualties 
he might liope to get his guns away. 
" Get ready to go up and hook in," he said to the drivers. 
As he looked at the sleek and well-groomed teams, he felt 
thankful that he had never let pass an opportunity of im- 
pressing on his men the duty of dismounting to ease the girths, 
of looking after the horse's feet, and all the little .arts of 
horsemastership. He had bidden them remember the horses 
were their best friends, and that some day they might have to 
make a heavy draft on that friendship. The day had come. 
At that moment there was a rush in the air behind liim, and 
a loud thud. His horse reared on her haunches and then came 
down ^)n her fore-feet with a plunge that nearly threw him 
out of the saddle. He could feel her quivering under him in 
every nerve as he reined her in and patted her neck. He was 
nearly blinded, but as the coal-black smoke cleared before 
his eyes he saw one of the horses on lier ba ck with her legs 
'ashing the air in agony and her smoking entrails exposed. 
She screamed as only a " dumb " animal can scream — a 
long drawn-out sliriek that was like an expiration. 
" Drag liim out of the way, sergeant, quick, or she'll lash 
his brains out," he shouted, as she rolled towards her driver. 
The latter lay quite stOl, both legs severed below the knee 
with jets of blood, spurting from the .severed arteries. Some of 
the horses were plunging, and one was bolting madly down 
the road. The men, dazed by tJic shock, were holding on to 
the others. 
The captain jumped off his horse, handed the bridle to an 
orderly, and pulled his revolver out of its holster. With 
one shot he i)ut the mangled beast out of her futile agonies. 
He ordered the rest of the team to be withdrawn a few hundred 
yards to such thicker cover as the wood afforded. But the 
(German guns were searching that wood with inexorable per- 
sistency, shivering the chestnut and beech and pine intc 
splinters, and pollarding the poplars as with a gigantic axe. 
The four teams were now reduced to twenty-four horses, and 
each gun would liave to be brought away with a pair short. 
He would tliink himself lucky if he lost no more. 
He galloped back to Headquarters for instructions, and as 
he rode down tlie long straight road, bordered by a parallel, 
line of poplars which met in a diminishing perspective, 
he passed more men limping along in every stage of decrepitude, 
some breathing hard, their faces livid and tlieir uniforms 
covered with black earth from head to foot as though thev 
had been dipped in pitch. Wounded 'men with blood 
streaming down their faces were dodging from tree to tree 
■seeking a wholly imaginary shelter from the shells which 
with freakish malignity fell here and there as though playing 
a diabolical game of hide and seek. Three men wearing 
their equipment and with their rifles at the carry paused 
irresolutely in the road. An A.P.M. advanced from behind 
a tree and met them in the middle. 
" Hullo ! Who are you ? Where are you going ? " 
" We was the Second Welsh, sir," said the spokesman of 
the party. " We's all that's left of B. Company— we've 
lost touch with the Borderers on our left flank and tHe line's 
broken in. We was looking for some one to post us, sir." 
The A.P.M. shepherded them together at the side of the 
road for despatch to the collecting station. 
Other stragglers came up. They were from the ist Queen's, 
and they brought news of an o'verw helming enemy attack on 
their right and a murderous enfilading fire. 
The A.P.M. fell them in with the rest to send up in support, 
the debris of other units came straggling in, Wcl-^h Fusiliers 
Queen's, a man of the Black Watch, and it struck the captain 
whimsically as he reined in to gather information that this 
show was strangely like a cotillon d' Albert in the sergeants' 
mess with everybody changing partners. Only there was no 
sitting out. -^ 
Looking down the road which ran straight as an arrow 
between the poplars, he perceived about fifty yards away the 
same figure which had arrested his attention half an hour before. 
How it had escaped the hail of slirdpnel was a mvstery. It 
had taken that half hour to cover barely half a" mile. He 
saw now that it was a Highlander without cap or equipment or 
rifle, a short man with the thick knees, powerful deltoid 
muscles thin lips and high cheek-bones, so characteristic of 
JUS Kind, there was something about his gait which was at 
once ludicrous and pathetic. The upper part of. his body was 
rigid, but the lower part described a semi-circular movement 
as tliough It were a pivot and his agitated legs pirouetted on 
tlie balls ol his feet so that he seemed to hesitate between a 
shutt e and a dance. But it was a melancholy dance in which 
tlie dancer s legs seemed to move of themselves, and in their 
convulsive movements he betrayed neither interest nor 
volition. His arms hung at his sides curiously immobile, 
but the hands twitched ceaselessly, turning on his wrists as 
on a hinge The comers of his mouth also twitched and his eye- 
lids perpetually rose and feU. 
.J}% Brigadier, who had spent the night in a dug-out by the 
side o the road, caught sight of him. All the morning he had 
nr^Vr l', ^',"° "' ^'^^ °P*^» receiving reports and issuing 
order., while smoking a cigarette with unstudied nonchalance. 
vnnllf ff^^'" ''^ •"^"'^ ^™<^ to speak to the stragglers. 
^U^^7 . '"]i "P ^7^\ ^^"^^^ °^ encouragement. It is not 
tip r« i I'l^'"'.?^ plays .the part of "battle police," but 
ii .S^hff u' ^^'f* "l*''"" ^'^^^^ '10^'- every man was worth 
vrli^ in gold-also that every man had earned, and should 
^ontlv h,f.i, ^"^'''^ '. ^'iM'™"^^^*'^"- He took the man 
Gordo,5'^'Tr What unit are you my lad? The 2nd 
effort to speak '^^'' "* ^'"^ ^""^ ^^^ ^ ^^^<'^"*^ 
svllablt'^;t tifn^f ^r'^-^^'-^^en, sir " he said, jerking out the 
'' vJhn'c "^'' '*'' ^''^'■e i"mping a terrific obstacle. 
'. T i , ,^?.^"" company commander?" 
_^ 1 d-d-d-dinna k-k-k-ken, sir." 
_^ Well, what's your name, my lad'" 
I c-c-c-canna." And tears came into his eyes. 
