Hill 35. 136 THE YPRES TIMES A TRUE STORY OF THE LINE. By H. Drummond Gauld. IN the old pre-war days it was the practice for certain students attending Edinburgh University to visit at certain specified periods the chemical labora tory of George Heriot's School when members of Class VI Upper, who were about to enter on a medical or kindred course at College, were conducting advanced experiments. Sometimes, a comely damsel, imbued witb the superior knowledge of a graduate, would grace with coy presence our motley throng; but most often our mentor was but a vulgar male. One summer forenoon, as we juggled with beakers, pipettes, test-tubes and bunsens, a strange figure, quite distinct from the ordinary student type, joined our group. He was a German, son of a baron, from the University of Bonn or Heidel berg, I forget which, and wore beneath his immaculate coat a broad sash running down from the left shoulder across his breast, which, he told us, showed the colours of his university. As became the son of an aristocrat with a tower on the Rhine, he was a very gentlemanly fellow, though not tall, and affable in a youthful, irresponsible fashion. What interested us most of all, perhaps, were the white criss-cross weals that covered his head. They puzzled us for a long time, but, as we grew better acquainted and formalities were dispensed with, he divulged to us that, at home beyond the Rhine, he had been a duellist of repute and had sadly vexed his father with his escapades. The weals across and across his head were sword slashes. After that, Bernard von Hauenhausen became a hero. We feted him at times during the ensuing winter, and he responded by introducing us to his set, and by treating us to schoolboy banquets in his digs and elsewhere. He was very patriotic, and told us heatedly at times that Germany intended to thrash the universe. Yes," he used to say, we shall fight you and our German soldiers shall walk in your streets and they shallThen he would pause and the boyish grin would steal over his face again and all enmity would be forgotten. At length, the time came when we all had to part from one another to go our several ways, to meet failure or success beyond the gates of Heriots; but when von Hauenhausen left us it was with mutual regret, for we had been good friends to him and he had been a real gentlemanfor a Hun. It was the night of the 29th of August, 1917, and the Third Battle of Ypres was raging on towards Passchendaele Ridge. In face of terrific machine-gun fire the Highland Light Infantry had that afternoon made a valiant attempt to carry the crest of Hill 35, and had been beaten back with such heavy loss that their greviously depleted ranks were no longer deemed sufficiently strong to hold the line. Thus, nightfall found the 7th/8th Scottish Borderers slogging forward through rain, mud and shellfire, to relieve their comrades of the 46th Brigade. The road to the front line was not marked by a duckboard track, but by a very broad tape-line along the ground. As we went forward the rain moderated some what, but the ground was in a most execrable state, which increased the difficulties of progress to an inconceivable extent. For a kilometre or so our way followed a smashed trolly line which was quite submerged in muddy fluid. While the little iron cross-bars of this track assisted us materially by affording us a firm foothold

HISTORISCHE KRANTEN

The Ypres Times (1921-1936) | 1931 | | pagina 14