The Red Horizon | Page 9

singers, her
mind was full of another matter. Only a mother thinking about a loved
son can so wholly lose herself from the world. And as I looked at her I
thought I detected tears in her eyes.
The priest, a pleasant faced young man, who spoke very quickly (I have
never heard anybody speak like him), thanked the soldiers, and through
them their nation for all that was being done to help in the war; prayers
were said for the men at the front, those who were still alive, as well as
those who had given up their lives for their country's sake, and before
leaving we sang the national anthem, our's, God Save the King.
With the pipers playing at our front, and an admiring crowd of (p. 042)

boys following, we took our way back to our billets. On the march a
mate was speaking, one who had been late coming on parade in the
morning.
"Saw the woman of the café in church?" he asked me. "Saw her
crying?"
"I thought she looked unhappy."
"Just after you got off parade the news came," my mate told me. "Her
son had been killed. She is awfully upset about it and no wonder. She
was always talking about her petit garçon, and he was to be home on
holidays shortly."
Somewhere "out there" where the guns are incessantly booming, a
nameless grave holds the "petit garçon," the café lady's son; next
Sunday another mourner will join with the many in the village church
and pray to the Virgin Mother for the soul of her beloved boy.
CHAPTER IV
(p. 043)
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE TRENCHES
Four by four in column of route, By roads that the poplars sentinel,
Clank of rifle and crunch of boot-- All are marching and all is well.
White, so white is the distant moon, Salmon-pink is the furnace glare,
And we hum, as we march, a ragtime tune, Khaki boys in the long
platoon, Going and going--anywhere.
"The battalion will move to-morrow," said the Jersey youth, repeating
the orders read out in the early part of the day, and removing a clot of
farmyard muck from the foresight guard of his rifle as he spoke. It was
seven o'clock in the evening, the hour when candles were stuck in their
cheese sconces and lighted. Cakes of soap and lumps of cheese are
easily scooped out with clasp-knives and make excellent sconces; we
often use them for that purpose in our barn billet. We had been quite a

long time in the place and had grown to like it. But to-morrow we were
leaving.
"Oh, dash the rifle!" said the Jersey boy, getting to his feet and kicking
a bundle of straw across the floor of the barn. "To-morrow (p. 044)
night we'll be in the trenches up in the firing line."
"The slaughter line," somebody remarked in the corner where the
darkness hung heavy. A match was lighted disclosing the speaker's face
and the pipe which he held between his teeth.
"No smoking," yelled a corporal, who had just entered. "You'll burn the
damned place down and get yourself as well as all of us into trouble."
"Oh blast the barn!" muttered Bill Sykes, a narrow chested Cockney
with a good-humoured face that belied his nickname. "It's only fit for
rats and there's 'nuff of 'em 'ere. I'm goin' to 'ave a fag anyway. Got
me?"
The corporal asked Bill for a cigarette and lit it. "We're all mates now
and we'll make a night of it," he cried. "Damn the barn, there'll be barns
when we're all washed out with Jack Johnsons. What are you doin',
Feelan?"
Feelan, an Irishman with a brogue that could be cut with a knife, laid
down the sword which he was burnishing and glanced at the non-com.
"The Germans don't fire at men with stripes, I hear," he remarked,
"They only shoot rale good soldiers. A livin' corp'ral's hardly as (p. 045)
good as a dead rifleman."
Six foot three of Cumberland bone and muscle detached itself from the
straw and looked round the barn. We call it Goliath on account of its
size.
"Who's to sing the first song," asked Goliath. "A good hearty song!"
"One with whiskers on it!" said the corporal.

"I'll slash the game up and give a rale ould song, whiskers to the toes of
it," said Feelan, shoving his sword in its scabbard and throwin' himself
flat back on the straw. "Its a song about the time Irelan' was fightin' for
freedom and it's called The Rising of the Moon! A great song entirely it
is, and I cannot do it justice."
Feelan stood up, his legs wide apart and both his thumbs stuck in the
upper pockets of his tunic. Behind him