Runners would come
there at all hours of the day and night, bringing messages from the
Front. They were usually well spent. Sometimes they had been gassed;
but they all had the invincible determination to carry on. After they
had delivered their message, they would lie down in the mud and go to
sleep like dogs. The moment the reply was ready, they would lurch to
their feet, throwing off their weariness, as though it were a thing to
be conquered and despised. I appreciated now, as never before, the
lesson of "guts" that I had been taught at Kingston.
There was one officer at Battalion Headquarters who, whenever I
entered, was always writing, writing, writing. What he was writing I
never enquired--perhaps letters to his sweetheart or wife. It didn't
matter how long I stayed, he never seemed to have the time to look
up. He was a Highlander--a big man with a look of fate in his
eyes. His hair was black; his face stern, and set, and extremely
white. I remember once seeing him long after midnight through the
raised flap of the tent. All his brother officers were asleep, huddled
like sacks impersonally on the floor. At the table in the centre he
sat, his head bowed in his hands, the light from the lamp spilling
over his neck and forehead. He may have been praying. He recalled to
my mind the famous picture of The Last Sleep of Argyle. From that
moment I had the premonition that he would not live long. A month
later I learnt that he had been killed on his next trip into the
trenches.
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