Owing to the
confused nature of the fighting no quarter could be given, and
desperate fighting ensued with bombs, bayonets and hand to hand. Finally
ten yards were gained and the ground consolidated.
At one point of the fight, finding progress otherwise impossible,
Captain Stewart mounted to the top of the barricade in full view of the
enemy, with shells and bombs bursting all round and under machine-gun
and rifle fire. Though wounded he remained there in face of certain
death for over ten minutes. From bucket after bucket handed up to him he
still hurled bombs at the thronging enemy beneath, until a sniper crept
round to his flank, and this heroic Scotsman fell.
'They pass, they pass, but cannot pass away,
For _Scotland_ feels them in her blood like wine.'
The night before he died Stewart said to a friend, 'I hate war: that is
why I am fighting.'
III
_Billets and Camps_
The camps to which the battalion returned after each tour of the
trenches were for the most part out of danger except for an occasional
shell, but it was only when we were withdrawn to the 'rest area' that we
felt any sense of freedom to settle down and take stock of ourselves.
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