WHILE my husband was serving in France during the Great War, I
carried on our business as job master, and it often used to fall to
my lot to drive the brave lads to and from the station. One lovely
summer night I was driving a young lad to catch the midnight train
which used to arrive at Waterloo about 4 a.m. He had come over from
New Zealand when the call came (he emigrated a few years before the
war) and he had just been home on leave to see his parents. I was
driving an extremely quiet little pony in a governess car, and the
young soldier and I were sitting opposite one another talking. I had
just asked him if he intended settling down with his parents when the
war was over or go back to New Zealand, and he replied he thought he
would stay at home until his parents died. No sooner had he said this
than the pony gave a most violent swerve, and, there, by the side of
the soldier, outside the trap, was another soldier in the New Zealand
uniform. The one I was driving shouted out: “That's a dirty trick to
play, mate, the pony might have had us out. Do you want a lift to the
station?” But the figure had vanished. A week later, the young fellow
had paid the Great Sacrifice. Now, all three of us saw the figure,
and I think the pony saw it first. When I got the pony to the
station, he was trembling and sweating, yet I had not driven him
hard. I often wondered if he saw more than the soldier and I saw.