HEROISM AND PATHOS OF THE FRONT
Told by Lauchlan MacLean Watt
This touching bit of genuine literature, penned by a poetic Scot "somewhere in France," deserves to rank as a classic among war letters.
I—STORY OF A YOUNG SCOTTISH SOLDIER
Out here in the land of war we sometimes feel very far from those we love; and then, as though we had walked somehow right through reality, our thoughts are lifted oversea, and the mirage of home floats like a dream before us. The magic stop is touched in many ways. Little do the brave lads speaking to us in camp or hospital know how often they brought us underneath its spell.
Just a week ago, in a tent where the wounded lay, I was beside the bed of a fine young Scottish soldier, stricken down in the prime of his manhood, yet full of hope. The thought of the faces far away was always with him upholdingly. In fact, the whole tent seemed vibrant with the expectation of the journey across the narrow strip of blue which sunders us from home. This Scottish youth had been talking, and it was all about what to-morrow held for him. His mother, and the girl that was to share life with him—these were foremost in his thought. His face shone as he whispered, "I'm going home soon." Everything would be all right then. What a welcome would be his, what stories would be told by the fireside in the Summer evenings! But he made the greater journey that very night. We buried him two days later, where the crosses, with precious names upon them, are growing thick together. Surely that is a place most holy. There will be a rare parade there on Judgment Day of the finest youth and truest chivalry of Britain and of France. Soft be their sleep till that reveillé!
We got the Pipe Major of a famous Highland regiment to come over; and when the brave dust was lowered, while a little group of bronzed and kilted men stood around the grave, he played the old wail of sorrow of our people, "Lochaber No More." I heard it last when I stood in the rain beside my mother's grave; and there can be nothing more deeply moving for the Highland heart. The sigh of the waves along Hebridean shores called to me there, among the graves in France.
The men who lie in this hospital are those who could not be carried further meanwhile, and they have been dropped here, in passing, to hover between life and death until they make a move on one side or other of the Great Divide. So it is a place where uncertainty takes her seat beside the bed of the sufferer, watching with ever unshut eye the fluctuating levels of the tide of destiny. It is a place where the meaning of war gets branded deep upon you. The merest glimpse solemnizes. Of course, the young may forget. The scars of youth heal easily. But the middle-aged of our generation will certainly carry to the grave the remembrance of this awful passion of a world.
II—THE MIRACLE OF DEATH