"So unhealthy, sir, that while I was there a whizz-bang hit my dug-out and blew my sergeant into small pieces, which remained hanging on the branches of the trees. It was a pity, for he was the best forward in the brigade football team. I put all I could find of him into a cloth, announced the burial for the next day, and then, as it was my turn to be relieved, I went back to the ambulance headquarters.
"My return was distinctly lively. On leaving the splendid trench which is called Zillebeke Road, I was silly enough to cross the exposed ground near the railway embankment. A machine gun thought it rather amusing to have a pot at me from Hill 60——"
"All right, doctor," said General Bramble, "spare us the details."
"Well, just as I left Ypres, I came across a Ford car which took me back to camp. In the mess I found Church of England and Church of Scotland arguing away as usual, while Roman Church was reading his breviary in a corner.
"'Satan, whence comest thou?' one of them asked me.
"'Well, gentlemen,' I replied, 'you ought to be glad to see me, because I really am back from hell this time.'
"And I told them my adventures, putting in a lot of local colour about
cannonades, explosions, whistling bullets and hailstorm barrages, in a style worthy of our best war correspondents."
"You old humbug!" grunted the colonel.
"'By the way,' I concluded, 'I've got a job for one of you! Freshwater, my sergeant, has been blown to bits, and what I could collect of him is to be buried to-morrow morning. I'll give you the route—Messines gate, Zillebeke——'