‘I prayed then as I never prayed before,’ he remarked.
‘For the stretcher-bearers to come to you,’ suggested a listener.
‘No, of course not’—this with surprise—‘I prayed for the boys. Man! it was grand to see the kilts go by.’
Casually he told of his effort to save one of his officers who was severely wounded. But both of them were unable to move and they lay on the field for twenty-four hours.
Patrick MacGill in his terrible description of Loos tells how the Jocks were scattered, dead and wounded, on the battlefield, their bare knees gleaming in the pale morning light. But for many there was no return.
However, this is a happy story. I firmly believe that Jock is the true fairy-tale hero who marries the princess and lives happily ever afterwards, even as he deserves. But he will always suffer for the suffering of others. He confided to me with shame that certain books brought him inexplicable sensations rather like wanting to cry. ‘It’s a sort of soft spot in my wooden heart,’ he explained. All alone in the ward he would solace himself by singing Burns’s songs—with tears in his eyes. He accounted for them by saying the light had dazzled him.
To the sorrows of the ward he gave all his heart. One of the ineffaceable memories of hospital is the morning when Patterson died. Patterson, a man of very different temperament, had loved Jock too and had, during his long-drawn weeks of dying, found comfort, I believe, in the atmosphere of cheeriness that emanated from Jock’s bed, when he could not move. They were two of the worst cases, and they could only exchange greetings by shouting across the ward.
On this morning there was a terrible silence. No one had the heart for song or gramophone. Patterson’s pain was too apparent; the coming end of it held the men in a hushed suspense. Then suddenly Patterson made an effort and called to Jock, ‘How are you, Jock?’ And Jock, white with sympathy, called back, ‘Champion! What way are you, Patterson?’ The pity of it....
But Jock’s story is only a quarter written. Its chapters have been fine reading for those who have had the luck to read them so far, but I believe there will be finer chapters yet.