The Red Horizon

e Tre

ys in the

and work

s up in t

k again

ith pick

, banquette

are back

brush, razo

ay at the new communication trench. It was nearly noon now, and r

all the morning, suddenl

n pigs," he said, and pulled

'dog,' who h

heese was generally flung into the incinerator, where it wasted away in smo

looking over the parapet towards the firing line. A shell whizzed by, and he du

aid Mervin, "where they sell

imey, there's no one 'ere

r quite half an hour previously. "There are two women there, a mother and

ck coffee, and the same

e allowed here,"

y've never left the place, and the roof

l flung in his face. We were with him immediately, and presently found ourselves at the door of a red brick

an urn of boiling water was bubbling merrily. A young girl, not at all good-looking but very sweet in manner, said "Bonjour, messieurs," as we entered, and approached each of us in turn to

to Egypt, a print of Millet's Angelus, and a rude etching of a dog hung anyhow, the frames smashed and the glass broken. A Dutch clock, with fi

his coffee, and finding that Mervin refused to expla

syllable, "I get no milk with cawfee, compree?"

way and speak it the other. Nark (confound) it, I say, Mad-ham-moss-elle, voo (what's "give,"

toner cut in. "It's not f

wered. "It mayn't be fair, b

ered Mervin, "she'd have a tas

into the roof. The old woman raised her head for a moment and crossed herself, then she continued her work; the daughter looked at Bill, laughed, and punched him on the s

ch," he said, "I'm tip ov

that I'd fanc

umbled Pryor, "I never could stand

l of a perfect wom

e her teeth pearly white? The toothache grips them and wears them down to black and yellow stumps. Is her body graceful, her waist slender, her figure upright. She becomes a mother, and every line of her person is distorted, she becomes a

from the bottom of the trench and lighting it at

that, in the course of a talk with Sto

e parapet and flinging the flowers to the superior slope. "There are some as I alm

nd. You get a surfeit of damp, earthy smell in your nostrils, a choking sensation in your throat, for the place is suffocating. The narrow trench is the safest, and

he risk of being blown to eternity by a shell. Rifles, packs, haversacks, bayonets, and men are all messed up in an intricate jumble, the reserves lie down like rats in a trap, with their noses to the damp earth, which always reminds me of the grave. For them there is no

sufferer can merely groan, suffer, and wait. When an attack is on the communication trenches are persistently shelled by the enemy with a view to stop the advance of reinforcements. Once our company lay in a trench as reserves for fourteen hours, and during that time upwards of

under water in the wet season; the trench is built of sandbags; all rifle fire is done from loop-holes, for to look over the parapet is to court certain death. A mountain of coal-slack lies between the lines a little further along, which are in "dead" ground that cannot be covered by rifle fire, and are 1,200 yards apart. It is here that the s

nd coldly singles out men for destruction day by day. There was one, however, who was saved by Irish hospitality. An Irish Gu

ggared if I could find him. 'I'll not lave this place till I do,' I says to meself, and spent half the nights I was there prowlin' round like a dog at a fair with my eyes open for the sniper. I came on his post wan night. I smelt him out because he didn't bury his sausage skins as we do, and they stunk like the hole of hell when an ould greasy sinner is a-fryin'. In I went to his sandbagged castle, with me gun on the coc

he sky. Then I goes back to me own place, and there was he waiting for me. He only ma

ter than water in yer bottle?' I says to him. Dang a Christian word would he answer, only swear, an swear with nothin' bar the pull of me finger betwixt him and his Maker. But, ye know, I had a kind of likin' for him when I thought of him comin' in to my house without as much as yer le

uttercup, and poppy flower; the whole is a riot of colour-crimson, heliotrope, mauve, and green. What a change from some weeks ago! Then the place was littered with dead bodies, and limp, lifeless figures hung on to the barbed wire where they had been caught in a mad rush to the tr

k there, head down, and legs up in air. They tell me that a concussion shell has struck him since and part of his body was blown over to our lines. At present the pond is hidden and the light and shade plays over the kindly grasses that circle round it. On the extreme right there is a graveyard. The trench is deep in dead men's bones and i

, as he fumbled with the money on the card table. His luck had been good, and he had won ove

?" I queried,

the deal was the last. A few wanted to play for another quarter of an hour, but he would no

, firewood, cooking utensils, and extra loaves. We bought the latter at a neighbouring bo

ted in the trenches, we were told, and our officers advised us to carry our own wood with us. So it came about that the enemy's firing served as a useful purpose; we pulled dow

uld 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

e full marching order of the regulations, packs light, forks and spoons in their putties, and all little luxuries which we s

firing-line?"

wer in a voice which seeme

n enquired, a note

t reminded me forcibly of Glasgow and th

asual

et when they shouldn't and they copped it,"

brogue that could be cut with a knife, and the humour that survived Mons and the Marne,

h?" I

Ye'll find us in a Gurkha regiment if you s

" I an

on the boat that took ye over,

s I sat down on the banquette. "Is t

e boy," the man near me replie

edily of the cold black tea. The man Mi

nd machine gun fire all the time. "They're quiet fellows, the Saxons, they don't want to fight any more than we do, so there's a kind of understanding between us. Don't fire at us and we'll not fire at you. Th

o you ge

is," he answered. "Ye've to

oad?" ask

ye know," w

ed Bill, lighting a cigarette and

trenches; they've been lyin'

" muttered Bill, "Why

"Anyway, it's Germans they are. They made a charge and did

nch. A shower of sparks flew up into the air and fluttered over the rim of the par

preparatory to moving, "See, and don't put yer head over the top, and don't light a fire at

attalion?" I called after

re two other battalions that are not here, maybe the

htsman, who doted on Omar; Kore, who read Fanny Eden's penny stories, and never disclosed his profession; Mervin, the traveller, educated for the Church but schooled in romance; Stoner, the clerk, who reads my books and says he never read better; and Bill, newsboy, s