The Love of an Unknown Soldier Found in a Dug-Out | Page 6

and bomb

you sometimes, you told me. I wish selfishly- But no, I'm glad that you
are playing the game with us men. I suppose all the pretty clothes are
put away left behind in Paris and you're wearing your nurse's uniform.
You're a captain in rank, aren't youj Then you're my superior, for I'm
only a subaltern. There must be more in you than I have guessed; to
have left luxury and come into danger just to look after other people's
babies, that took courage. I never thought of you as a soldier when we
were in Paris you were only the most beautiful girl I had ever met. No,
more than that the gentlest and the kindest. There's a religion about you
when I think of you as a nurse. There's a sacredness of devotion, which
goes deeper than mere beauty.
The blot which ended my last sentence was not entirely my fault. A
shell landed at the entrance to our dug-out, killed one runner, wounded
two and blew the candle out. We've just finished binding up the two
wounded men; the other lies in the passage, covered by a blanket. Poor
chap ! He's a mere boy and has not been out long. They didn't give him
much of a run for his money. Such accidents are largely our own fault.
We're always expecting to advance, so we do very little to the trenches
which we capture and occupy. The dug-outs faced the right way for the
Boche when he held them, but for us they face his shells. Cent la guerre
f
It's not taken very long for me to plunge into action. How long? Only
four nights since we listened to William Tell and bade each other that
unsatisfactory farewell. When I arrived at the railhead on my journey
back, I failed to discover my groom with the horses. I phoned up my
Division and had to wait till close on midnight before my man arrived.
It was a cold ride to the waggon-lines. The road was like glass in places
where ditches had overflowed and frozen. We had to walk our beasts a
good part of the way; they slithered like cats on the tiles. A hard,
chiselled moon was in the sky; the ruined country, forbidding and
ghostly, was carved into deep shadows. 1 learnt that our battery had
only moved into its new position that day; consequently everything was
at sixes and sevens.
It was nearer three than two in the morning by the time we reached our

waggonlines. The horses were pretty nearly " all in " with the amount
of travelling they had done. The place was a battered village; every
barn was full of troops, and for the most part only the walls of the
houses were standing. We roused the quartermaster with difficulty; he
wasn't very certain as to where our waggon-line officer had his billet. It
was too late to go out and search; I unrolled my sleeping-sack and got
into it, only removing my boots and tunic. Rather a sudden change
from the luxury of the Crillon, the warm baths and the cleansheeted
beds! Do you begin to understand why it is that you seem so far away?
Changes, even more sudden, were in store for me. Shortly after six next
morning I was wakened by an orderly; he had come down from the
guns to order me to report at once. My toilet didn't take very longthat 's
one advantage of not undressing. My poor little mare was once more
saddled; I slung a haversack across my shoulder and away we went
along the glassy roads, scrambling and sliding. The orderly informed
me on the way what he supposed was the reason for so much haste.
One of our subalterns had been sent back of the lines on a course of
instruction and another had collected a most beautiful Blighty in the leg.
As a consequence our major was short-handed.
I found the battery in a narrow valley. It is one which by name you
know well; but names must not be mentioned. A year ago the French
made it famous by the fierceness of their fighting. The fighting was all
hand-to-hand so close that bayonets were out of the question, and men
stormed the heights with daggers in their mouths. There in the
undergrowth the fallen still lie unburied. The snow has covered them
for the present, but you can feel their bones beneath your tread. Part
way down the valley is a little clump of trees among which our guns
are hidden. There are paths leading through the island wood, covered
with trellis-work to hide them from aeroplane observation. I left my
horses and went on foot the last part of the journey; one does