Towards evening the Irishman in charge of the train had pity and
took me along--we had stopped for the thirty-fifth time--to admire his
Primus stove in full blast, and to share his excellent dinner. But
(stove or no stove) the world is divided into those who can do that sort
of thing and those who cannot; who, wrestling futilely with refractory
elements, wish they had never been born.
He said that before we reached the railhead we would probably hear the
sound of the guns. The phrase is used to barrenness, even to ridicule,
but the reality when first heard rings a new emotion in your breast. The
night was windless and warm, and about ten o'clock as we stood in a
wayside station the Ulsterman came up to me and said, 'Listen, you can
hear them now.' And away to the east could be heard a deep shaking sound
rising and fading away in the still air--the sound of British artillery
fighting day and night against yet overwhelming odds.
Twenty hours later, after many wanderings, a friendly Field Ambulance
car deposited me at the door of the mess of the clearing station, where
the arrival of a 'Scotch minister' had been awaited with a good deal of
curiosity and possibly some apprehension.
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