THE YPRES TIMES
137
here and there, they tripped us up with disastrous results in those places where
the little railroad had heen blown to pieces. Buffeted by the howling wind, soaked
and heavy with mud, the Scottish Borderers wrestled on to the firing-line. About
half-way forward we came under heavy shell-fire and would certainly have been
swept out of existence but for the deep mud which engulfed the falling shells to
some depth, thereby localizing the effects of their explosions. We were greatly
harassed by machine-gun fire in the vicinity of Pommern Redoubt, and lost a
number of men on the bullet-swept ridge. But we knew that up there in the black
ness the lads were awaiting us behind the ramparts of their dead.
A relief of the line was very frequently a confusing business even in sectors
where regular trench systems existed, but where there were no trenches of com
munication, as during a battle, it became sometimes positively heartbreaking to all
concerned. Reliefs were always carried out at night and there was no turning
back. Every adverse circumstance had to be met and overcome.
It was long gone midnight when we came upon the battered remnants of the
Highland Light Infantry crouching in their swirling trench. They wanted to get
away quickly, and we Borderers, looking into their death-haunted eyes, compre-
hendingly bade them a safe journey to the rear. In the shouting and in the general
confusion of their evacuating the trench, a soldier in the uniform of a sergeant
came in out of No Man's Land across our parapet. His back was towards me as
he started to converse with our platoon, but, though his voice seemed vaguely
familiar, I could not place the individual at all.
He enquired in a friendly, off-hand manner what battalion we were and if we
had just come into the line, how long we were to hold the position and if we were
going to attackjust the usual sort of conversation that invariably took place when
men of different units met. All the while I listened to him unseen, trying to place
that refined, educated voice. He was, he said, a sergeant belonging to the Brigade
Machine Gun Corps holding a covering position somewhere in our rear, and had
been out near the German pill-box endeavouring, like a gallant British soldier, to
correct his ranges and find a good target for the guns. Such was the story he told
in his affable, friendly manner. All the while I stood behind him trying my hardest
to place himand then, as he was preparing to go, I remembered/
He turned round to climb the parados, and in the gloom of the Very lights and
the red glare of the artillery the recognition between us was mutual.
By gum, sergeant!" I fairly shouted, fancy meeting you here in these
beautiful surroundings after all those vanished years." He took it splendidly, and,
as I held out my hand, the fear that shone from his eyes gave way to the old
familiar twinkle, and there, in the mud and blood and agony of it all, we became
happy schoolboys again in the old quadrangle at Heriots. Great cakes, old
chap!" he replied, we meet again in pleasant circumstances," and he came very
close to me, laying his hand on my shoulder and looking down into my dirty, mud-
encrusted face. He knew that his life was not worth a moment's purchase if I but
spoke the hateful word.
Scarcely had he finished speaking when a fierce burst of fire from the German
pill-box on the crest of the ridge above us swept our parapets, and for a minute we
all crouched in the sodden trench. Then we sprang to our feet. Sergeant," I
said, "what about a drop of rum in the officers' dug-out?" "Right," he
acquiesced at once, though the look of a trapped creature came into his eyes again.
I led the way till we came to a vacant length of trench, and then, pausing, pointed
over the parapet towards the German line. He understood my drift immediately
and mounted the firestep, but ere he leapt across the bags he turned round, and,
holding out his hand, bade me good-bye. Then, with one hand on the sandbags
ere he vaulted over, he whispered something in my ear; something that, though he
