The Red Horizon

st

s like Kil

e that neve

tail, hung

o tear each ot

ickled down their cheeks on to their tunics. The white dust of the roadway settled on boots, trousers, and putties, and rested in fine layers on haversack folds and cartridge pouches. Rifles and bayonets, spotless in the morning's inspection, had lost all their polished lustre and were gritty to the touch. We carried a heavy l

y jowl had just come out of an estaminet, a mess-tin of

uired, an amused smile hovering about his eyes,

. "Have you been

atter of n

ucky," said Me

f that's what you mean," wa

ondon

itori

us," som

ime up t

st t

k-horses you look like. If you want a word of advice, sling your packs over a hedge, keep a tight

re ther

es." was t

d you l

number on it; it can't miss you if it's made for you. And if ever you go into a charge-Think of your pals, matey!" he roared at the man who was greedily gulping down the contents of the mess-tin, "You're swi

Mervin has been a great traveller, he has dug for gold in the Yukon, grown oranges in Los Angeles, tapped for rubber in Camerango (I don't know where the place is, but I love the name),

stretcher bearers, and one has left us to join another company in which one of his mates is placed. Poor Mervin! How sad it was to lose him, and much sadder is it for his sweetheart in England. He was engaged; often he told me of his dreams of a far

ers lost thirty-seven men when going up to the trenches on the same route. In the village all was quiet, the cafés were open, and old men, women,

stopped, and up to the present he has received from his employers six bars of chocolate and four old magazines. His age is nineteen, and his job is being kept open for him. He is one of the cheeriest souls alive, a great worker, and he loves to listen to the stories which now and again I tell to the section. When at S

ant marcher, and light of limb; he may be a clerk in business, but as he is naturally secretive we know nothing of his profession. Kore is also a punster who makes abominable puns; these amuse nobody except, perhaps, himself. Teak, a good fellow, is known to us as Bill Sykes. He has a very

shaping of his limbs, sturdy as pillars of granite and supple as willows, in the setting of his well-poised head, his heavy jaw, and muscled neck. But the gods seem to have grown weary of a momentous masterpie

us section and applied for a transfer into ours. He gloats over sunsets, colours, unconventional doings, hopes that he will never marry a girl with thick an

; we were near the rear and singing Macnamara's Band, a favourite song with our regiment. Suddenly a halt

s in front, and it sounded like a waggon-load of rubble bein

king the ash from the tip of his

port has br

l," I ventured, not

ur gran

, curled slowly upwards, and gradually faded away. I looked at my mates. Stoner was deadly pale; it seemed as if all the blood had rushed away from his face. Teak's mouth was a little open, his cigarette, st

bowed over her work, and her back bent almost double. Two children, a boy and a girl, came along the road hand in hand, and deep in a childish discussion. The world, the fighting men, and the bursting she

ck m

as almost levelled to the ground. But beside it, almost intact, although not a pane of glass remained in the windows, stood a café.

with a heavy beard, seemed to be telling a funny story; all his mates were laughing heartily. A horseman came up at

"The one that burst there," he pointed with his whip towards th

hink of it," I

to myself I thought it might have done for me, and I got a kind of sh

you,

all over fo

il

will do you in, and that's about the end of it. Well, sing a song to cheer us

h boys they

the Kai

ash up that

his bloo

seated; his coat sleeve ripped from the shoulder, and blood trickling down his arm on to his clothes; inside, on the seat

ket, matey?" S

king about," was the answer. "I'll remember

pavement, addressing the wounded man. "I'd give five pounds for a

long out here

e are seven of the old regiment left, and it makes m

t like w

es away from the stinks, and cold, and heat,

, an inscrutable smile playing round

liance on gunpowder th

about God!" sa

out of the trenches for a rest, send us to church, and tell us to love our neighbours.

n in a bayonet cha

"and I don't like the blasted

whirred off, and th

g up little strips of earth on his furrowed world. The old home, now a jumble of old bricks getting gradually hidden by the green grasses, the old farm holed by a thousand shells, the old plough, and the old h

the trenches. There is something pathetic in the forward crawl, in the automatic motion of boots rising and falling at the same moment; the gleaming sword handles waving backwards and forwards over the hip, and, above all, in the stretcher-bearers with stretchers slung over their shoulders marching along in rear

g with a shrapnel-shivered roof, and p

ion trench to-day!" we were told by an R.E.

ay dogs which haunt their old and now unfamiliar localities like ghosts, yelled in anguish as he was sniffing the gutter, and dropped limply to the pavement. A French soldier wh

per again!" said

" somebody as

for weeks. Keep clear of the roadway!" he cried, as another bullet swept through the air, and st

y into the communication trench. A signboard at the entrance, with the word

plinters sung over our heads, for the most part delving into the field on either side, but sometimes they struck the parapets and dislodged a pile of earth and dust, which fell on the floor of the trench. The floor was paved with bricks, swept clean, and almost free from dirt; there was a general air of cleanliness about the p

t Medal," Mervin whispered. "How did

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, that will be quite suf

a few weeks in

face was dripping with blood, and he had

it happen

et," he laughed, squeezing into a manhole. "Two of your boys have copped

ondon

"I think the two poor devils are done in. Oh, this isn't much," he continued, taking out a spare han

es

ed, and somebody took up the thread of conversatio

spot showed on his throat, there was no trace of a wound. His mate's clothes were cut away across the belly, the shrapnel had entered there under the navel, and a little blood was oozing out on to the trouser's waist, and giving a darkish tint to the brown of the khaki. Two stretcher-bearers were standing by, feeling, if one could judge by the dejected look on their faces, impotent in the fac

ointed at the youth, then at t

ers,"

somehow with the thought came a sensation of fear. It might be our turn next, as we might go under to-day or to-morrow; who could tell when the turn of the next would come? And

, but most of their shells flew wide or went over their mark, and mad

parapet even when the shells were bursting barely a hundred yards away. Like the r

ner, "I never believed it even when I

red there," said the engineer, "and t

hav

dun

of mind. "But they, the bounders, would do anything. Are they the b

ey'd not do in the ordinary way," was t

many killed?"

n before this war. Now!" he paused. "That what we saw just now," he continued, alluding to the death of the two soldiers in the

ewly opened corner. When night came we went back to the village in the rear. "The Town of the Last Woman" our men called it. Slept in cellars and cooked our food, our