In front, with the driver, one of our boys was seated; his
coat sleeve ripped from the shoulder, and blood trickling down his arm
on to his clothes; inside, on the seat, was another with his right leg
bare and a red gash showing above the knee. He looked dazed, but was
smoking a cigarette.

"Stopped a packet, matey?" Stoner enquired.

"Got a scratch, but it's not worth while talking about," was the
answer. "I'll remember you to your English friends when I get back."

"You're all right, matey," said a regular soldier who stood on the
pavement, addressing the wounded man. "I'd give five pounds for a
wound like that. You're damned lucky, and its your first journey!"

"Have you been long out here?" asked Teak.

"Only about nine months," replied the regular. "There are seven of the
old regiment left, and it makes me wish this damned business was over
and done with."

"Ye don't like war, then."

"Like it! Who likes it? only them that's miles away from the stinks,
and cold, and heat, and everything connected with the ---- work." (p. 060)

"But this is a holy war," said Pryor, an inscrutable smile playing
round his lips. "God's with us, you know."

"We're placing more reliance on gunpowder than on God," I remarked.

"Blimey! talk about God!" said the regular.

"There's more of the damned devil in this than there is of anything
else. They take us out of the trenches for a rest, send us to church,
and tell us to love our neighbours. Blimey! next day they send you up
to the trenches again and tell you to kill like 'ell."

"Have you ever been in a bayonet charge?" asked Stoner.

"Four of them," we were told, "and I don't like the blasted work,
never could stomach it."

The ambulance waggon whirred off, and the march was resumed.

We were now about a mile from the enemy's lines, and well into the
province of death and desolation. We passed the last ploughman. He was
a mute, impotent figure, a being in rags, guiding his share, and
turning up little strips of earth on his furrowed world. The old home,
now a jumble of old bricks getting gradually hidden by the green
grasses, the old farm holed by a thousand shells, the old plough, (p. 061)
and the old horses held him in bondage. There was no other world for
the man; he was a dumb worker, crawling along at the rear of the
destructive demon War, repairing, as far as he was able, the damage
which had been done.

We came to a village, literally buried. Holes dug by hig