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
