ed to stare and broad khaki backs swung
easily beneath their many accoutrements. And in street and square and
by-street, always and ever was that murmurous stammer of sound more
ominous and threatening, yet which nobody seemed to heed--not even
K., my companion, who puffed his cigarette and "was glad it had
stopped raining."

So, picking our way through streets a-throng with British faces,
dodging guns and limbers, wagons and carts of all descriptions, we
came out upon the open road again. And now, there being no surface at
all to speak of, we perforce went slow, and I watched where, just in
front, a string of lorries lumbered heavily along, pitching and
rolling very much like boats in a choppy sea.

Presently we halted to let a column go by, officers a-horse and
a-foot with the long files behind, but all alike splashed and
spattered with mud. Men, these, who carried their rifles anyhow, who
tramped along, rank upon rank, weary men, who showed among them here
and there grim evidence of battle--rain-sodden men with hair that
clung to muddy brows beneath the sloping brims of muddy helmets; men
who tramped ankle-deep in mud and who sang and whistled blithe as
birds. So they splashed wearily through the mud, upborne in their
fatigue by that indomitable spirit that has always made the Briton
the fighting man he is.

At second speed we toiled along again behind the lorries who were
making as bad weather of it as ever, when all at once I caught my
breath, hearkening to the far, faint skirling of Highland bagpipes,
and, leaning from the car, saw before us a company of Highlanders,
their mud-splashed knees a-swing together, their khaki kilts swaying
in rhythm, their long bayonets a-twinkle, while down the wind came
the regular tramp of their feet and the wild, frenzied wailing of
their pipes. Soon we were up with them, bronzed, stalwart figures,
grim fighters from muddy spatter-dashes to steel helmets, beneath
which eyes turned to stare at us--eyes blue and merry, eyes dark and
sombre--as they swung along to the lilting music of the pipes.

At the rear the stretcher-bearers marched, the rolled-up stretchers
upon their shoulders; but even so, by various dark stains and marks
upon that dingy canvas, I knew that here was a company that had done
and endured much. Close by me was a man whose hairy knee was black
with dried blood--to him I tentatively proffered my cigarette case.

"Wull ye hae one the noo?" I questioned. For a m