t
ye've put on my boots,' So I 'ad, put on his blessed boots and laced
them mistaking 'is feet for my own."

"We never heard of this before," I said.

"No, cos 'twas ole Jersey as was lying aside me that night, next day
'e was almost done in with the bomb."

"It's jolly quiet here," said Goliath, sitting back in an armchair and
lighting a cigarette. "This will be a jolly holiday."

"I heard an artillery man I met outside, say that this place was (p. 154)
hot," Stoner remarked. "The Irish Guards were here, and they said they
preferred the trenches to the Keep."

"It will be a poor country house," said Mervin, "if it's going to be
as bad as you say."

On the following evening I was standing guard in a niche in the
building. Darkness was falling and the shadows sat at the base of the
walls east of the courtyard. My niche looked out on the road, along
which the wounded are carried from the trenches by night and sometimes
by day. The way is by no means safe. As I stood there four men came
down the road carrying a limp form on a stretcher. A waterproof
ground-sheet lay over the wounded soldier, his head was uncovered, and
it wobbled from side to side, a streak of blood ran down his face and
formed into clots on the ear and chin. There was something uncannily
helpless in the soldier, his shaking head, his boots caked brown with
mud, the heels close together, the toes pointing upwards and outwards
and swaying a little. Every quiver of the body betokened abject
helplessness. The limp, swaying figure, clinging weakly to life, was a
pathetic sight.

The bearers walked slowly, carefully, stepping over every (p. 155)
shell-hole and stone on the road. The sweat rolled down their faces
and arms, their coats were off and their shirt sleeves rolled up
almost to the shoulders. Down the road towards the village they
pursued their sober way, and my eyes followed them. Suddenly they came
to a pause, lowered the stretcher to the ground, and two of them bent
over the prostrate form. I could see them feel the soldier's pulse,
open his tunic, and listen for the beating of the man's heart, when
they raised the stretcher again there was something cruelly careless
in the action, they brought it up with a jolt and set off hurriedly,
stumbling over shell-hole and boulder. There was no doubt the man was
dead now; it was unwise to delay on the road, and the soldiers'
cemetery was in the village.

In the evening we stood to arms i