“Poor Old Bones!”
I look an awful picture. My clothing is torn to shreds. I have lost all my buttons, and it is dreadful cold at nights, but I cuddle up against the horses for warmth. Our horses are terrified, mad, but my two seem a bit at ease when I lie down beside them at night. If I leave them for a minute there is no pacifying them. You would die of laughing if you saw me now. I am writing this across the horse’s belly. He is too tired to rise, but he gives me such knowing looks at times. He is a proper chum. He is a grey, and you should see the mess I have made trying to discolour him. He has tar mixed with moss rubbed over him. Every kind of dust and dirt I could get has been rubbed on him. I have to laugh when I look at him, and the officer this morning nearly had a fit. Of course, there is a humorous side to everything. We would never live if there wasn’t. The noise is deafening. You can’t hear your mate speak unless he shouts in your ear. The bursting of the shells is appalling, but poor old “bones” lies here as if he was in the stable at home. He is dead beat, and so am I, but there is no actual rest here; it is only a lull: A Private of the Scots Greys.
[VI. BATTLES IN BEING]
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature’s tear-drops as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave,—alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass....
Byron’s: “Childe Harold.”
For the Colonel rides before,
The Major’s on the flank,
The Captains and the Adjutant
Are in the foremost rank.
But when it’s “Action front!”
And fighting’s to be done,
Come one, come all, you stand or fall
By the man who holds the gun.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
I got a biscuit from Tibby Tennant, and was eating it when I got shot. M‘Phail was beside me, and dressed my wounds as well as he could: Pte. Clark, Highland Light Infantry.