"When Jerry's brother had finished, a dead silence ensued. I nervously lighted a fag, and out of the corner of my eye noticed that Sailor Bill was uneasily squirming on the firestep.
"Letting out a sigh, which seemed to whistle between his teeth, our 'guest' carried on:
"'Jerry weren't much at cheerful writin', were 'e? But 'e 'ad a callin'. H'even back 'ome in Blighty, 'e weren't much for lights nor fun. 'E took after our mother. The neighbors called 'er 'aunted, too, but she weren't. She could see things like Jerry. Used to talk to the governor, set 'is plyce at table an' 'e dead these fifteen years."
"Then he went on telling us about the Lone Tree as if we had never seen it, and there it blinking well was about a hundred yards from us out in front. Many a time at night on patrol work have I stumbled over a dead body at its base. I tell you, Yank, it was creepy work listening to him.
"'This 'ere Lone Tree Sentinel, Jerry writes about in 'is poetry, is an h'old tree in No Man's Land a 'underd yards or more from the firestep. It is pretty well knocked about by bullets an' shell fragments. It mykes a good 'eadquarters for spirits an' voices, stickin' sort o' lonely-like up h'against the sky at night. It are the guide-post o' the dead, h'even though patrols uses it to show 'em the w'y back to their trenches. But those what follows its pointin' arm 'as started on their w'y to the absent voices.'
"We all shivered because every one of us had used that guide-post more than once while out in front.
"'Out there in the blackness h'it's easy to lose your w'y h'unless you 'ave spirits a-guidin' you, like me an' Jerry 'as. At h'its roots were many dead, just a rottin' out there, a tykin' o' their trainin' fer the spirits. When the wind was a-blowin' our w'y, to the ignorant it were sort o' h'unpleasant, but Jerry an' me knew, h'it were their message, they was answering the roll o' the spirits.
"'At that time No Man's Land were no plyce for mortals what with the bullets an' shells a-singin' o' their death song d'y an' night, but Jerry didn't mind, 'e 'ad 'is mission an' 'ad to answer the call o' the voices.