And this here
is Lieutenant Booth's. There's a chap now that picked up wonderful. Two
months ago everybody thought he was a big soft slob, and those bombers
say that he was all, right. And here's the M. O.'s. Poor old doc! There
was a man, now, if there ever was one. He wasn't afraid of nothing. He
would go walking about with a smile when a bombardment was on, and in
that last big show the other day, they say him and the chaplain--there's
another peach--they 'carried on' wonderful. I wasn't around there at the
time, but the boys at the dressing station told me that them two worked
back and forward getting out the wounded, I think they had about thirty
injured up at that time, as if it was a kind of er summer shower that
was falling, let alone H. E.'s and whizzbangs, and then after they got
the last man out, the M. O. went in with some stretcher bearers, just
lookin' around before he left, and a shell came and got 'em all, and
they say it was about the last shell that was throwed. And that's where
poor Harry Hobbs got his, too. The Pilot went out just a minute before,
and when he came back that's what he saw. They say he was terrible cut
up over the M. O. Funny thing, the M. O.'s face was just as quiet as if
he had gone to sleep, but the rest of the boys, well you could hardly
get 'em together, and the Pilot walkin' up and down there lookin' like a
lost man. We buried 'em right there by Maple Copse. I want to tell
you, sergeant, that that's the hardest job I ever done in this war. The
Pilot, he broke right down in the middle of the service. It must have
been hard for him. I've been with him now at every funeral and he stands
up to his work like a man. He takes it kind of cheery almost, but when
we was puttin' down the M. O. and poor Harry, the Pilot just couldn't
appear to stand it. I cried like a baby, and you ought to have seen the
crowd, the O. C. and the adjutant and the pioneers, and they are all
pretty hardened up by this time. They have done enough plantin' anyhow.
They just all went to pieces. The shells was goin' overhead among the
trees, something awful, but nobody minded more than if they had been
pea-shooters. First time I ever seen the Pilot break, and I have been
with him ever since the first one we buried, and that was big Jim Berry.
A sniper got him. You don't remember? I guess you don't see much or get
much of the news back here."

"Back here!" exclaimed Sergeant Mackay. "What do you mean, 'back here'?
D