They passed through the gateway. “Do you know if General Ballardyce is here?” asked Stark of a big man, chaplain’s cross on his cap.
“No, I don’t,” answered the parson. “Who the hell is General Ballardyce?”
They searched the farm, gloomy outhouse after gloomy outhouse. Everywhere lay the wounded, brown shapes, moaning and wailing. Finally, they found steps; stumbled down them into an underground cellar. The place looked, smelt, was a charnel house. The reek of it struck Peter like a blow. Reek of blood! Blood everywhere. Bloody forms lying on bloody sacks. Bloody bandages in bloody buckets. A man with bloody hands stooping over bloody flesh.
“Let’s get out of this,” rasped Stark. . . .
Once more they stood outside the farm, among the chugging cars, the moaning wounded. A form approached them. A voice asked “Are you General Ballardyce?”
“I am not,” said Colonel Stark.
The form materialized into a pale-faced subaltern, whom Peter recognized.
“Aren’t you Rutton of the Chalkshires?”
“Yes. Jameson, isn’t it? I say, I wish you could help me. I’ve got all the travelling cookers of the 2nd Infantry Brigade just up the road. And I’ve been ordered to rendezvous with them at Haisnes Church at dawn. . . .”
“Haisnes is three miles away from here; and it’s inside the Boche lines, young man,” interrupted Stark.