The distance to the firing-line was a long one;
traverse and turning, turning and traverse, we thought we should never
come to the end of them. There was no shelling, but the questing
bullet was busy, it sung over our heads or snapped at the sandbags on
the parapet, ever busy on the errand of death and keen on its mission.
But deep down in the trench we regarded it with indifference. Our way
was one of safety. Here the bullet was foiled, and pick and shovel
reigned masters in the zone of death.
We were relieving the Scots Guards (many of my Irish friends (p. 083)
belong to this regiment). Awaiting our coming, they stood in the full
marching order of the regulations, packs light, forks and spoons in
their putties, and all little luxuries which we still dared to carry
flung away. They had been holding the place for seven days, and were
now going back somewhere for a rest.
"Is this the firing-line?" asked Stoner.
"Yes, sonny," came the answer in a voice which seemed to be full of
weariness.
"Quiet here?" Mervin enquired, a note of awe in his voice.
"Naethin' doin'," said a fresh voice that reminded me forcibly of
Glasgow and the Cowcaddens. "It's a gey soft job here."
"No casualties?"
"Yin or twa stuck their heads o'er the parapet when they shouldn't and
they copped it," said Glasgow, "but barrin' that 'twas quiet."
In the traverse where I was planted I dropped into Ireland; heaps of
it. There was the brogue that could be cut with a knife, and the
humour that survived Mons and the Marne, and the kindliness that
sprang from the cabins of Corrymeela and the moors of Derrynane.
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