the bottom."

"'Twas because we didn't put a cross of green rushes over it last
Candlemas Eve," he remarked. "You should have made one then, but you
didn't. Can you put an edge on the scythe?" he asked.

"I used to be able before--before the--" I stopped feeling that I had
forgotten some event.

"I don't know why, but I feel strange," I said, "When did you come (p. 179)
to this village?"

"Village?"

"That one up there." I looked in the direction where the village stood
a moment before, but every red-brick house with its roof of
terra-cotta tiles had vanished. I was gazing along my own glen in
Donegal with its quiet fields, its sunny braes, steep hills and white
lime-washed cottages, snug under their neat layers of straw.

The white road ran, almost parallel with the sparkling river, through
a wealth of emerald green bottom lands. How came I to be here? I
turned to my brother to ask him something, but I could not speak.

A funeral came along the road; four men carried a black coffin
shoulder high; they seemed to be in great difficulties with their
burden. They stumbled and almost fell at every step. A man carrying
his coat and hat in one hand walked in front, and he seemed to be
exhorting those who followed to quicken their pace. I sympathised with
the man in front. Why did the men under the coffin walk so slowly? It
was a ridiculous way to carry a coffin, on the shoulders. Why did they
not use a stretcher? It would be the proper thing to do. I turned (p. 180)
to my brother.

"They should have stretchers, I told him."

"Stretchers?"

"And stretcher-bearers."

"Stretcher-bearers at the double!" he snapped and vanished. I flashed
back into reality again; the sentinel on the left was leaning towards
me; I could see his face, white under the Balaclava helmet. There was
impatience in his voice when he spoke.

"Do you hear the message?" he called.

"Right!" I answered and leant towards the man on my right. I could see
his dark, round head, dimly outlined above the parapet.

"Stretcher bearers at the double!" I called. "Pass it along."

From mouth to mouth it went along the living wire; that ominous call
which tells of broken life and the tragedy of war. Nothing is so poignant
in the watches of the night as the call for stretcher-bearers; there
is a thrill in the message swept from sentinel to sentinel along the
line of sandbags, telling as it does, of some poor soul stricken down
writhing in agony on the