14 
LAND & WATER 
November 8, 1917 
two of the limping figures would fall in the road, and he where 
thev fell. At such times, or rather a moment before, some 
of the figures would d;u:t for the shelter of the poplars and 
behind the trunks ; it was the slower oneswhofell. In the 
distance, about half a mile away, was a solitary figure moving 
so slowly that he hardly seemed to mo\-c at all, and executing 
as he went a kind of clog dance, making no atttempt to dodge 
the shells which fell aroiyid 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 nowliere visible. This surprised the captain the 
less as he knew that every battalion detail wlio could carry 
anything was carrj'ing on with a rifle. 
As the morning advanced, tlie omens darkened- ine 
units of the German armies in front of the sunken road that 
cut the road to .Menin at right angles through Gheluvelt 
were thrusting forward like the fingers of a gigantic out- 
stretched hand, and in the narrow spaces between each pair 
of fingers each British battalion was being slowly squeezed 
to deatli. Such was the picture which presented itself to 
the Battery Commander's imagination as he pieced together 
the fragments of intelligence that came in at frequent mtervals 
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 staff 
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 reserves left. 
The captain looked at the four guns in their turf em- 
placements. In the last forty-eight hours he had shortened 
his 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. 
Ihe gun? were now firing over an arc of ninety degrees, sweep- 
ing the German front, and the range was little more than a mile. 
The enemy advance was creeping on like an oii-stain and, if 
the reports that our centre was being driven in were true, m 
no long time his gunneis 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 resteu on each part he thought out all the orders he might 
have to give in the hour of extremity. 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 
[or 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 clearly marked on its 
diaphanous wings, and as it passed on it dropped a white 
fire-ball. He knew \vhat that meant. In no long time the 
right section of his battery might be knocked out by a direct 
hit. He rode back to the gun-teams a few hundred yards 
away to warn them to prepare to go up to the guns at a 
moment's notice. He found them grouped where he had left 
them the 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 o\er the teams ; they mustered the same 
strength as overnight. If they sustained no more' casualties 
he might hope to get liis 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 
horscmastership. 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 him, and 
a loud thud. His liorse reared on her haunches and then came 
down on 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 her ba ck with her legs 
'ashing the air in agony and her smoking entrails exposed. 
She screamed as only a " dnrnb " animal can scream — ^a 
long drawn-out shriek 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 still, 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, daze d by the shock, Nvere 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 put 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 aft'orded. But the • 
German guns were searching that wood with inexorat)le per- 
sistency, shivering the chestnut and beech and pine into 
splinters, and pollarding the poplars as with a gigantic axe. 
The four teams vvJ;re now reduced to twenty-four horses, and 
each gun would have to be brought away with a pair short. 
He would think himself lucky if he lost no more. 
He galloped back to Headquarters for instructions, and as 
he rode down the 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 their uniforms 
covered with black earth from head to foot as though they 
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 
tlieir 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 ? Wliere 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 overwhelming 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, Welsh 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 shrapnel was a mystery. 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 
his 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 though it were a pivot and his agitated legs pirouetted on 
the balls of his feet so that he seerned to hesitate between a 
shuffle and a dance. But it was a melancholy dance in which 
the 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 corners of his mouth also twitched and his eye- 
lids perpetually rose and fell. 
The Brigadier, who had spent the night in a dug-out by the 
side of the road, caught sight of him. All the morning he had 
moved to and fro in the open receiving reports and issuing 
orders, while smoking a cigarette with unstudied nonchalance. 
Now and again he found time to speak to the stragglers, 
rounding them up with words of encouragement. It is not 
often that a General plays the part of " battle police," but 
the General knew that in this vital hour every man was worth 
his weight in gold — also that every man had earned, and should 
receive, a General's commendation. He took the man 
gently by the arm. " Wrat unit are you my lad ? The 2nd 
Gordons ? " The "man blinked at him and made a resolute 
effort to speak. 
" I d-d-d-d-dinna k-k-k-ken, sir " he said, jerking out tke 
syllables as though lie were jumping a terrific obstacle. 
'■ Who's your company commander?" 
" I 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 liis eyes. 
