Ann and Her Mother

by O. Douglas

Mrs. Douglas spoke first. "It was a wonderful oasis in that desert of anxiety when Davie was wounded and at home. Those nights when we had lain awake thinking of him in the trenches, those days when we were afraid for every ring at the bell, and hardly dared look when we opened the hall door after being out, in case the orange envelope should be lying on the table. To have all that suddenly changed. To know that he was lying safe and warm and clean in a white bed in a private hospital in London, 'lying there with a face like a herd,' Mark wrote, with nothing much the matter with him but a shrapnel wound in his leg—it was almost too much relief. And we had him at Queensferry all summer. We were greatly blessed, Ann."

"And it wasn't quite so bad letting him go the second time," Ann said. "He had been there once and had got out alive and he knew the men he was going to, and was glad to go back; and Mark wasn't far from him, and could see him sometimes."

"His letters were so cheery. From his accounts you would have thought that living in the trenches was a sort of jolly picnic. Oh, Ann, do you remember the letter to me written in the train going up to the line, when he said he had dreamt he was a small boy again, and 'I thought I had lost you, wee body, and I woke up shouting "Mother," to the amusement of the other men in the carriage?'"

"Some people," said Ann, "go through the world afraid all the time that they are being taken advantage of. Davie never ceased to be amazed at the kindness shown him. He was one of those happy souls whose path through life is lined with friends, and whose kind eyes meet only affectionate glances. His letters were full of the kindness he received—the 'decent lad' in his platoon who heard him say his dug-out was draughty, and who made a shutter for the window and stopped up all the cracks; the two corporals from the Gallowgate who formed his bodyguard, and every time he fell into a shell-hole or dodged a crump shouted anxiously, 'Are ye hurt, sirr?' You remember he wrote: 'These last two years have been the happiest in my life,' and other men who were with him told us he never lost his high spirits."

"That was such a terribly long, hard winter," Mrs. Douglas said. "The snow was never off the hills for months. And then spring came, but such a spring! Nothing but wild winds and dreary sleet. We hoped and hoped that Davie would get leave—he was next on the list for it—but he wrote and said his leave had gone 'very far West.' We didn't know it, but they were getting ready for the big spring offensive. Then one day we saw that a battle had begun at Arras, and Davie's letter that morning read like a farewell. Things may be happening shortly, but don't worry about me. I've just been thinking what a good life I've had all round, and what a lot of happiness I've had. Even the sad parts are a comfort now....'"

"Mother, do you see," said Ann, "there's your text about Ammon. Out there, waiting for the big battle, Davie didn't feel it sad any more than Father and Robbie had gone out of the world—he was comforted concerning them because they were dead. We were thinking of him and praying for him every hour of the day, but he felt them nearer to him than we were."

"To think that when that letter came he was dead! To think that I was in Glasgow with Miss Barbara talking of him nearly all the time, for Miss Barbara loved the boy, and nothing told us he was no longer in the world. To think of the child—he was little more—waiting there in the darkness for the signal to attack. He must have been so anxious about leading the company, so afraid——"

"Anxious maybe," said Ann, "but not really afraid. Don't you remember what his great friend Captain Shiels wrote and told us, that while they waited for the dawn Davie spoke 'words of comfort and encouragement to his men.' I cry when I think of that...."

"My little boy—my baby. Away from us all—alone...."

"No. No, Mother, never less alone; 'compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses.' I have a notion that all the great army of men who down through the centuries have given their lives for our country's bright cause were with our men in that awful fighting, steeling the courage of those boy-soldiers.... And Father and Robbie were beside him, I am very sure, and Father would know then that all his prayers were answered for his boy—the bad little boy who refused to say his prayers, the timid little boy who was afraid to go into a dark room—when he saw him stand, with Death tapping him on the shoulder, speaking 'words of comfort and encouragement to his men.' I think Robbie would say, 'Stout fellow.' That was the 9th. The telegram came to us on the afternoon of the 11th. Jim and I were terribly anxious, and I had been doing all the jobs I hated most with a sort of lurking, ashamed feeling in my heart that if we worked our hardest and did our very best Davie might be spared to us."