The Ypres Times.
29
till, almost, he turns back. The soul of him is afraid the heart of him is painting
pictures. He sees his wife, just a friendly, homely girl of his own class. She is cooking
the steak for his tea." His baby is asleep in the low cradle, just beyond the glow of the
lamplight. And then the picture vanishes. He is alone again. Here are the cross-roads,'
the wire badly broken by the blast of a shellhe must cast, as a hound casts, for the
further end of it. Now he is at Suicide Corner mending the last break. Now, he can
hear the operators at either end talking clearly to each other his night's work is over.
He slips his arm through the coil of loose wire, buckles the straps of his telephone-case.
But there is no work to distract him as he toils back through the blue-grey night
no job to stand between his mind and the pressing ghosts. The picture of his wife
comes to him again this time it is the girl that he sees, not the woman. They are on top
of a motor-'bus, his arm is round her waist, the lights of London gleam and sway below
them. The warning swish of a shell drives him to cover he crouches low in the
cold slime of the trench is deafened by the roar of the detonation feels the splinters
pattering all about him. Instinct holds him to the ground he is safe there, nothing can
touch him. He waits, shivering a little. Slowly courage comes back the fear of knowing
himself coward pulls him to his feet and so I see him, toiling on under the faint
stars past the black shadows of ruined houses where once light was, and the patter of
children past the pitted cross-roads, down the little hill to the canal bank.
All the while the ghosts are pressing on him, striving and striving to make him under
stand. "We died here we suffered here," they are trying to say. Go home you can do it
soeasily. Your nerve is going. Shell-shock. You've only got to tell the doctor. Go home to
your wife and kiddie. Go home before the next one gets you, as it got us.He does not know
who is talking to him, he only realizes something rummy feels the temptation
to throw his hand in," to go home. Home. London. The warm smell of the safe streets,
the reek of smoke and the gossip of his fellow-men in the railway carriage, his wife's head
on his shoulder in the night If only he had a pal to yarn with They oughtn't to send
one out alone, not on a night like this And then he sees the flicker of my candle, makes
for it, pokes his head in, cries 'Ullo, mate
Men who work with their hands, men without imagination." We, who are born
to the function of command." My own phrases come back to me empty, as I sit thinking
of my unknown linesman, of his fears, and his desires, and the creed which holds him to the
track of duty. Such a simple creed Better dead, better maimed, than own oneself, to
oneself, coward."
A very humble worker in words crawls into his creaking camp-bed, hears the rats
scuffle and scamper over the sodden flooring of his dug-out.
THE OXFORDSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY AT NONNEBOSCHEN.
(November 11th, 1914.)
By SIR HENRY NEWBOLT.
THE climax of this stupendous battle came, after three days of comparative
quiet, on Wednesday, November 11th. For the final stroke at Ypres the
Kaiser had brought up the 1st and 4th Brigades of the Prussian Guards
thirteen battalions in all, including the 1st and 3rd Foot Guards, the Kaiser
Franz Grenadier Regiment No. 2, and the Koenigin Augusta Grenadier
Regiment No. 4. In the twilight of early morning the huge column advanced with all
the pomp of their parade step against our salient at Gheluvelt.
At this moment, the 52nd, who had been relieved and sent north on the 9th, were
in reserve at Verloerenhoek, on the Ypres-Zonnebeke road. On the morning of the 11th
they were unpacking their equipment for the first time for'weeks, and preparing for a
rest when an urgent message reached them The line is brokenthe Prussian Guards
are through." The few available supports were desperately needed. The 52nd covered
From The Story of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Country Life Library).
