"It was about eleven o'clock, and some of the houses in the row had already been hit. Ye gods! Vesuvius in its balmiest days was like a Chinese lantern to this—for a second, in a lull, you would hear the whine of a big shell; then, crash! it went into a building, and shell and house went up together in one frightful smash-up.
"I went over to wake the old boy, as he showed no symptoms of having been disturbed. It was useless to rap—there was such an infernal racket with shells bursting, roofs toppling in and walls falling out. I stumbled up the dark stairs to his room. He was sound asleep—think of it! I spoke to him, but he didn't wake; so I shook him gently by the shoulder and he opened his eyes.
"'Hello, Wellcombe!' he growled, in his rough but genial way. 'What the devil brings you prowling around at this time of night?'
"I told him that I thought the billet was becoming a trifle unsafe, as some of the other houses in the row had already been hit.
"'Is that all you came to tell me?' he asked, with indifference.
"I said it seemed sufficient to me, and told him we had no wish to lose him.
"'Well, well,' he came back at me, but not unkindly, 'and you woke me out of a sound sleep to tell me this! Go and get me a drink and then run along like a good fellow and go to bed.'
"And after the old chap had his drink he thanked me, turned over in bed, and I believe was sound asleep again before I got out of the house—while a continual hell of fire and shells tore the guts out of the town about him! When I went back in the morning, there was only one house left standing in that row—the colonel's. The others were a crumpled mess of bricks and mortar!"
I chatted with him as long as I could, and then, telling him I would drop in later in the day, continued my rounds on the wards.
As we entered one of the smaller rooms, I noticed a bright-eyed, red-cheeked Scotch lad, not more than seventeen years of age, seated upon his cot. He was chatting animatedly with several others, but sprang to attention as we approached. The nurse unwound the bandages and showed me his wound—a bayonet cut across the palm. We had already heard from his comrades that this slip of a boy, with the smiling eyes and ringing laugh, was one of the finest bayonet fighters in his battalion, and had to his credit a string of German scalps that would make a Pawnee Chief green with envy. His wound was the result of grasping his opponent's bayonet during one of these fights.