and my very best friend."

"May I go up with you, Duncan? I know Colonel Tait and Captain Gregg,
who are at the Mill, I understand."

"I would be awfully glad if you would, but I hardly liked to ask you. It
hasn't the reputation of being a very healthy place, I hear."

"All right, Cameron. I'm going up," said Barry.

Upon enquiry they found that they were too late for the transports, and
again the question arose as to whether, in view of the major's order,
they should make the attempt by themselves.

"It was not really an order, I think, sir," said Cameron. "It was more
in the way of a suggestion. I think I'll go. The note said, 'dangerously
wounded,' and he sent for me."

"All right," said Barry, "we'll go on, and we'll almost certainly pick
up some one who will be able to direct us to the Mill."

Their road, which took them to Vlammertinghe, led through level
fields, lying waste and desolate with rank, overgrowing weeds. As they
approached that historic village, they saw on every hand the cruel marks
of war. On either side of the road were roofless and shattered cottages,
grown around with nettles and briars. Among these ruins, as they found
on a later day, were the old garden flowers, pansies and daisies,
bravely trying to hold their own. Among the rank weeds was to be seen
the half-hidden debris of broken farm gear. Here and there stood the
ruins of what had been a thrifty homestead, with its stone-flagged
courtyard, around which clustered its stables. Now nettles and briars
grew around the broken walls and shattered, staring windows. At rare
intervals, a great house appeared, with pretentious gateway, and
grass-grown drive winding up between stately and mutilated trees. Over
the whole countryside hung a melancholy and weird desolation, cottages,
homesteads, fields, the very trees crying aloud to high heaven for pity
and vengeance.

At Vlammertinghe, itself, the church tower still stood whole, but
the church itself was wrecked, as were most of the village shops and
dwellings. In the village was to be seen no living thing except some
soldiers, who in the broken cellars were making their bivouacs. The
village stood deserted of its inhabitants, ever since the terrific
onslaught of the Huns, on the 22nd of April, 1915, which had driven them
forth from their homes, a panic-stricken, terror-hunted crowd of old
men, women and little babes, while over them broke, with a continuous
and appalling roar, a pitiless rai