ame.

But above us the horrid din was still going on, and bits of shells
were flying everywhere--anyone of them enough to kill you, if it
struck you in the right spot. I was glad, I can tell ye, that I was
so snug and safe beneath the ground, and I had no mind at all to go
out until the bombardment was well over. I knew now what it was
really to be under fire. The casual sort of shelling I had had to
fear at Vimy Ridge was nothing to this. This was the real thing.

And then I thought that what I was experiencing for a few minutes was
the daily portion of these laddies who were all aboot me--not for a
few minutes, but for days and weeks and months at a time. And it came
home to me again, and stronger than ever, what they were doing for us
folks at hame, and how we ought to be feeling for them.

The heavy firing went on for three-quarters of an hour, at least. We
could hear the chugging of the big guns, and the sorrowful swishing
of the shells, as if they were mournful because they were not
wreaking more destruction than they were. It all moved me greatly,
but I could see that the soldiers thought nothing of it, and were
quite unperturbed by the fearful demonstration that was going on
above. They smoked and chatted, and my own nerves grew calmer.

Finally there seemed to come a real lull in the row above, and I
turned to the general.

"Isn't it near time for me to be finishing my concert, sir?" I asked
him.

"Very good," he said, jumping up. "Just as you say, Lauder."

So back we went to where I had begun to sing. My audience
reassembled, and I struck up "The Laddies Who Fought and Won" again.
It seemed, somehow, the most appropriate song I could have picked to
sing in that spot! I finished, this time, but there was some discord
in the closing bars, for the Germans were still at their shelling,
sporadically.

So I finished, and I said good-by to the men who were to stay in the
trench, guarding that bit of Britain's far flung battleline. And then
the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour was ready to go back--not to
safety, at once, but to a region far less infested by the Hun than
this one where we had been such warmly received visitors!

CHAPTER XXII

I was sorry to be leaving the Highland laddies in that trench. Aye!
But for the trench itself I had nae regrets--nae, none whatever! I
know no spot on the surface of this earth, of all that I have
visited, and I have been in many climes, that struck me as less