[To face p. 74.
THE DARDANELLES: CARRYING WOUNDED TO A HOSPITAL SHIP.
Scottie was rather cheery, and when the padre came up and said, “Well, how are you?” he answered, “I’m feeling pretty good now.”
When the colonel went up to him, Scottie said, “I’m going to die!”
“Oh no, you’re not,” said the colonel. “You’ll get all right again. Don’t let that worry you. You’ll soon be playing Christmas Calls for us.”
To that Scottie made a reply which I shall never forget. “Yes,” he said. “I shall die! I can smell ut!” That was his real expression, and I suppose he meant that he could smell death.
Scottie wanted the colonel to take charge of some little trinkets and things: his pay-book, and a photograph of two children. “Give these to the wife,” he said. Then he broke into “Annie Laurie,” and sang a verse of it. He sang the song fairly well. It was a good attempt for a man in the straits that he was in.
At six o’clock he died, and was buried the same night, after sundown, at the place where we were, and that was a big cutting called Chatham’s Post, named after one of the officers. It was a deep cutting in the side of the hill. These two chaps were lying there on stretchers, and it was very hard for a bullet to hit them. Scottie was just taken to the back of the parade at the back of Chatham’s Post, a place called Shrapnel Green. It was a green field when we first went, but it was soon trodden down and made bare by gun and rifle fire. And there Scottie was laid to rest.