Out here in the land of war we sometimes feel very far from those we
love; and then, as though we had walked somehow right through reality,
our thoughts are lifted oversea, and the mirage of home floats like
a dream before us. The magic stop is touched in many ways. Little do
the brave lads speaking to us in camp or hospital know how often they
brought us underneath its spell.
Just a week ago, in a tent where the wounded lay, I was beside the
bed of a fine young Scottish soldier, stricken down in the prime of
his manhood, yet full of hope. The thought of the faces far away was
always with him upholdingly. In fact, the whole tent seemed vibrant
with the expectation of the journey across the narrow strip of blue
which sunders us from home. This Scottish youth had been talking, and
it was all about what to-morrow held for him. His mother, and the girl
that was to share life with him--these were foremost in his thought.
His face shone as he whispered, "I'm going home soon." Everything
would be all right then. What a welcome would be his, what stories
would be told by the fireside in the Summer evenings! But he made the
greater journey that very night. We buried him two days later, where
the crosses, with precious names upon them, are growing thick together.
Surely that is a place most holy. There will be a rare parade there on
Judgment Day of the finest youth and truest chivalry of Britain and of
France. Soft be their sleep till that reveillé!
We got the Pipe Major of a famous Highland regiment to come over; and
when the brave dust was lowered, while a little group of bronzed and
kilted men stood around the grave, he played the old wail of sorrow of
our people, "Lochaber No More." I heard it last when I stood in the
rain beside my mother's grave; and there can be nothing more deeply
moving for the Highland heart. The sigh of the waves along Hebridean
shores called to me there, among the graves in France.
The men who lie in this hospital are those who could not be carried
further meanwhile, and they have been dropped here, in passing, to
hover between life and death until they make a move on one side or
other of the Great Divide. So it is a place where uncertainty takes
her seat beside the bed of the sufferer, watching with ever unshut eye
the fluctuating levels of the tide of destiny. It is a place where
the meaning of war gets branded deep upon you. The merest glimpse
solemnizes. Of course, the young may forget. The scars of youth heal
easily. But the middle-aged of our generation will certainly carry to
the grave the remembrance of this awful passion of a world.