"Badly?"
"No, he's able to speak."
Fifteen minutes later I saw Mervin again. He was lying on the stretcher and the bearers were just going off to the dressing station with it. He was breathing heavily, round his head was a white bandage, and his hands stretched out stiffly by his sides. He was borne into the trench and carried round the first traverse. I never saw him again; he died two days later without regaining consciousness.
On the following day two more men went: one got hit by a concussion shell that ripped his stomach open, another, who was on sentry-go got messed up in a bomb explosion that blew half of his side away. The charm of the courtyard, with the flower-beds and floral designs, died away; we were now pleased to keep indoors and allow the chairs outside to stand idle. All day long the enemy shelled us, most of the shells dropped outside and played havoc with the church; but the figure on the crucifix still remained, a symbol of something great and tragical, overlooking the area of destruction and death. Now and again a shell dropped on the flower-beds and scattered splinters and showers of earth against buildings and dug-outs. In the evening an orderly came to the Keep.
"I want two volunteers," he said.
"For what?" I asked him.
"I don't know," was the answer, "they've got to report immediately to Headquarters."
Stoner and I volunteered. The Headquarters, a large dug-out roofed with many sandbags piled high over heavy wooden beams, was situated on the fringe of the communication trench five hundred yards away from the Keep. We took up our post in an adjacent dug-out and waited for orders. Over our roof the German shells whizzed incessantly and tore up the brick path. Suddenly we heard a crash, an ear-splitting explosion from the fire line.
"What's that?" asked Stoner. "Will it be a mine blown up?"
"Perhaps it is," I ventured. "I wish they'd stop the shelling, suppose one of these shells hit our dug-out."