there in the No Man's Land, had told us a good deal.
"Dad--that was an awful sight! I was in command of one of the burying
parties we had to send out."
That was the tale I thought of when I found that bit of the Black
Watch tartan. And I remembered, too, that it was with the Black Watch
that John Poe, the famous American football player from Princeton,
met his death in a charge. He had been offered a commission, but he
preferred to stay with the boys in the ranks.
CHAPTER XXI
We left our motor cars behind us in Arras, for to-day we were to go
to a front-line trench, and the climax of my whole trip, so far as I
could foresee, was at hand. Johnson and the wee piano had to stay
behind, too--we could not expect to carry even so tiny an instrument
as that into a front-line trench! Once more we had to don steel
helmets, but there was a great difference between these and the ones
we had had at Vimy Ridge. Mine fitted badly, and kept sliding down
over my ears, or else slipping way down to the back of my head. It
must have given me a grotesque look, and it was most uncomfortable.
So I decided I would take it off and carry it for a while.
"You'd better keep it on, Harry," Captain Godfrey advised me. "This
district is none too safe, even right here, and it gets worse as we go
along. A whistling Percy may come along looking for you any minute."
That is the name of a shell that is good enough to advertise its
coming by a whistling, shrieking sound. I could hear Percies
whistling all around, and see them spattering up the ground as they
struck, not so far away, but they did not seem to be coming in our
direction. So I decided I would take a chance.
"Well," I said, as I took the steel hat off, "I'll just keep this
bonnet handy and slip it on if I see Percy coming."
But later I was mighty glad of even an ill-fitting steel helmet!
Several staff officers from the Highland Brigade had joined the
Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour by now. Affable, pleasant gentlemen
they were, and very eager to show us all there was to be seen. And
they had more sights to show their visitors than most hosts have!
We were on ground now that had been held by the Germans before the
British had surged forward all along this line in the April battle.
Their old trenches, abandoned now, ran like deep fissures through the
soil. They had been pretty well blasted to pieces by the British
bombardment, but a good many of their deep, concrete d
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