“Of course, I do,” asserted Mackay indignantly. “I've been all around that front line. What are you givin' us!”
“Oh, you have, eh! Well, I wouldn't unless I had to, you bet. It's no place for a man with a waist line like mine. Well, as I was sayin', that cemetery was right out in the open, right under observation, and exposed to machine guns, snipers, whizbangs, all the hull bloody lot of 'em. Wasn't no place for a cemetery anyway, I say. I'm not after any bomb proof job but a cemetery should be—”
“Should be a quiet and retired spot,” suggested one of the transport boys.
“Yes. What's the use of getting livin' men shot up when they're buryin' dead men, I want to know. Not saying anything about the officers that's always round, and the chaplain. I say a cemetery should be somewhere out of sight, like Maple Copse; now, there's a good place, except that the roots make it hard diggin'. Up against a railway bank like that down at Zillebeck, by the Railway Dugouts, there's a lovely place.”
“How would the Ramparts do, sergeant?” enquired another transport lad.
“Ramparts? You mean at Ypres? Yes,” said the sergeant, with a grin, “but I'd hate to turn out the Brigade Headquarters Staff.”
“Go on, sergeant.”
“Well, as I was sayin', that's no place for a cemetery up there beyond the Loop, but I didn't know so much about it then, you bet. That's where we had to bury Jim. It was a awful black night, and of course, just as we got out to the trench to go 'overland' to the cemetery, them flares started up something awful. I don't know what they was lookin' for, but when they went up, I want to tell you, I felt about the size of a tree, and I wisht I was one. Well, Jim, you know, was pretty heavy, an awful heavy carry he was for the boys. I was tryin' to hurry 'em along, but that Pilot, he heads the procession, and on he goes at a funeral march pace. Now I believe in doin' things right. I've heard of some pioneers that hurries their job. I don't believe in that, but when you are going across the open on a dark night, with them flares going up, I say between flares is a good time to get a move on, but, no, that there Pilot, he just goes that pace and no more. I want to tell you the boys was nervous and the officers too. The O. C. and Major Bustead was there. I could see the major fussin' to get on. Well, we got Jim down all right, and just as the Pilot got started, darned if they didn't open up the biggest kind of a machine gun chorus you ever heard.”
“What did you do, sergeant?”
“Me? Well, I started huggin' mud and saying all the good words I could think of. Even the O. C. got down on his knees, and the major, he near got into the grave, but that darned Pilot stood up there getting taller every minute, and goin' on with his prayer, and the boys sayin' 'Amen!' that loud and emphatic that I thought he'd take the hint and cut out somethin', but cut out nothin'! Seemed as if his memory was workin' over time, the way he kept a fetchin' up things that he could a easily forgot, and when he comes to the benediction, the whizbangs begin to come. Up goes his hand, the way they do. I thought to myself that that was a kind of unnecessary display. I looks up and there he was, more like a tree than ever. In fact, I says to myself—it's queer how you think things at times like that—darned if they won't think the darned fool is a tree, for nothin' but a darned tree would stand up in the flare light and look so much like a tree anyhow. I guess that's what saved him. He never moved until he was done, and then didn't he stay with us pioneers after the rest had gone until we filled up. Say, he's all right.”