wed the
disappearance of comrade after comrade on the left.

"Poor old fellow," said another.

"No," muttered Mac. "By God though, I'm blind for life!" He felt the
blood rushing down his face, and he knew it. He sat up, and no one
said anything. He thought for a second or two and decided on a course
of action. "Well, it's no longer any good staying here. I'm off." So
saying, he undid the buckles of his Webb equipment, and struggled out
of all his gear, keeping only the case of his glasses, for he thought
he might as well stick to them.

He remembered the way to the second line, and crawled along the
shattered trench to the left, feeling his way past the legs of the one
or two men who were left. They paid no attention to him, being too
busy with the enemy to be concerned with other matters. He felt his
way along on his hands and knees, down into holes, over dead bodies,
avoiding wounded, across the open ground, until he came to where he
thought the communication trench ought to be and turned to the left.
There seemed to be little of it remaining. It had never been much of a
thing, and was now blown about and full of wounded and dead. He was
finding himself in difficulties about getting past some wounded men,
when some one came out from the second line and led him in. There his
Captain took his hand and patted him on the back.

"I'm afraid I've lost my sight, sir," said Mac.

"I'm afraid so, old boy," replied he. "I'll send a chap back with you."

One of the boys took charge of him, and Mac stumbled off through the
little piece of trench into the open, across which, from both sides,
the bullets fled whistling and zipping. Jogging awkwardly short
distances over the rough ground, then lying in hollows for brief rests,
they covered at length that exposed slope of about one hundred and
fifty yards which separated the trench from the shallow head of a
ravine, wherein lay hundreds of wounded and dead. The trooper guided
Mac carefully over a space where bodies lay thick, and made him lie
down on a sloping clay bank, took his field dressing from his pocket
and bandaged his head.

Mac lay there through the whole of that long terrible day, a day of
strange unearthliness, when he seemed to float away into a weird
dreamland and at times into nightmare, and yet it was not a day of
unmixed suffering. The sun glared down pitilessly through the hot
hours, the tormenting flies swarmed in their millions, the dead la