rt, and was fraternising with the transport men of the
Highlanders, with whom he was sure he would feel himself in more
complete accord.

"Here they come, boys," said a Scot, as the sound of the pipes grew
louder. "There's a drummer for ye. Listen 'til that double roll, wull
ye?"

"Ay, Danny, the boys will be shovin' out their chests and hitchin' their
hips about something awful."

"Ye may say that, Hec. Will ye look at young Angus on the big drum, man,
but he has got the gr-rand style on him."

"Ay, boys, they are the la-ads," said Sergeant Mackay, yielding to the
influence of his environment and casually dropping into the cadence of
the Highlanders about him, which, during his ten years in the west,
his tongue had well-nigh lost. "It's a very fine thing, your pipers are
doing, playing our boys out in this way, and we won't be forgetting that
in a hurry."

"Why for no?" enquired Hec, in surprise. "It's the Highlanders
themselves that love a bonny fighter."

Down the road, between lines of silent men, came the pipers with waving
kilts and flying tartans, swinging along in their long swaying stride,
young Angus doing wonders on the big drum, with his whirling sticks, and
every piper blowing his loudest, and marching his proudest. Behind them
came the men of the battalion marching at attention, their colonel at
their head, grave of face and steady. Behind the colonel marched Major
Bayne, in place of the senior major, whom illness had prevented from
accompanying the battalion on this last tour, no longer rotund and
cheery as was his wont, but with face grey, serious and deep lined.
After him at the head of A Company marched Captain Duff, his rugged,
heavy face looking thinner and longer than its wont but even fiercer
than ever. With eyes that looked straight before then, heedless of the
line of silent onlookers, the men marched on, something in their set,
haggard faces forbidding applause. At the rear of the column marched the
chaplain alone, and every one knew that he had left up in the Salient
behind him his friend and comrade, the M. O., whose place in all other
marching had been at his right hand. All knew too how during this last
go, in the face of death in its most terrifying form, they had carried
out their wounded comrades one by one until all were brought to safety.
And all knew too, how the chaplain carried with him that day a sore and
lonely heart for the loss of one who was more to him than batman, and