dmire his
Primus stove in full blast, and to share his excellent dinner. But
(stove or no stove) the world is divided into those who can do that sort
of thing and those who cannot; who, wrestling futilely with refractory
elements, wish they had never been born.

He said that before we reached the railhead we would probably hear the
sound of the guns. The phrase is used to barrenness, even to ridicule,
but the reality when first heard rings a new emotion in your breast. The
night was windless and warm, and about ten o'clock as we stood in a
wayside station the Ulsterman came up to me and said, 'Listen, you can
hear them now.' And away to the east could be heard a deep shaking sound
rising and fading away in the still air--the sound of British artillery
fighting day and night against yet overwhelming odds.

Twenty hours later, after many wanderings, a friendly Field Ambulance
car deposited me at the door of the mess of the clearing station, where
the arrival of a 'Scotch minister' had been awaited with a good deal of
curiosity and possibly some apprehension.

A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT'

CHAPTER III

A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT'

I

_From Parapet to Base_

We sometimes hear of some man who with leg smashed continues firing his
machine-gun as though nothing had happened. How is this to be explained?
The answer is one that is a real comfort to those at home. The most
shattering wounds are not those which cause the greatest immediate pain.
It is as though a tree fell across telegraph wires. The wires are down,
and no message, or, at worst, a confused jangling message can come
through to the brain. I have known a man carried into an aid-post in a
state of great delight because he had 'got a Blighty one.' He lay
smoking and talking, little realising that his wound was so grave that
it would be many months before he could walk again--if indeed he would
ever walk with two legs. By the time the realisation of the pain has
come into full play the sufferer, in ordinary times, is in the clearing
station or, at least, the field ambulance, and has the resources of
science at his disposal.

Suppose that at three in the afternoon Jock is hit, in the front trench.
'Jock' is the name universally given to Scottish soldiers, Lowland or
Highland. It is not a melodious name, but there it is! And it somehow
expresses the Scotsman's character better than 'Tommy' does. He