Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 25, 2025
"Any casualties?" asked Blaikie. "None here," replied Wagstaffe. "There may be some back in the support trenches." "We might telephone and inquire." "No good at present. The wires are all cut to pieces. The signallers are repairing them now." "I was nearly a casualty," confessed Bobby modestly. "How?" "That first shell of ours nearly knocked my head off!
Captain Blaikie stands leaning against a traverse in the fire-trench, superintending the return of a party from picket duty. They file in, sleepy and dishevelled, through an archway in the parapet, on their way to dug-outs and repose. The last man in the procession is Bobby Little, who has been in charge all night.
"Private McNulty, sirr!" announces the Sergeant-Major to the Company Commander, with the air of a popular lecturer on entomology placing a fresh insect under the microscope. Captain Blaikie addresses the shivering culprit "Private McNulty; charged with destroying Government property. Corporal Mather!"
Here was I condemned to some rotten buffoonery in inglorious safety, while the salt of the earth like Blaikie was paying the ghastliest price. From him my thoughts flew to old Peter Pienaar, and I sat down on a roadside wall and read his last letter. It nearly made me howl.
'I beg your pardon, sir, but I've not been accustomed to be pulled up suddenly, and asked for my credentials. My name is Blaikie, Captain Robert Blaikie, of the Scots Fusiliers. I'm home on three weeks' leave, to get a little peace after Hooge. We were only hauled out five days ago. I hoped my old friend in the shell-shock hospital at Isham would pardon my borrowing his identity.
"Whatever we make history or a bloomer we'll do our level best," replied Blaikie. "At least, I hope 'A' Company will." Then suddenly his reserved, undemonstrative Scottish tongue found utterance. "Scotland for Ever!" he cried softly. "Half-past two, and a cold morning, sir."
This movement is recommended by Mason and also by Blaikie, and as it is part of the West Point "setting up" drill, it may be regarded as considered on good authority to be efficacious in producing an erect carriage. Stand as upright as you can, your arms against your side, the forearm at right angles, as before, and jerk your elbows downward four times.
It is more than likely that this very trench had been constructed expressly for the inveiglement of a too successful attacking party. Certainly no troops could live in it for long. "A" Company were to go forward and support. Captain Blaikie, passing word to his men to be ready, turned to Bobby. "I'm a morose, dour, monosyllabic Scot, Bobbie," he said; "but this sort of thing bucks me up."
She smiled demurely as she arranged the tea-things, and I thought I had never seen eyes at once so merry and so grave. I stared after her as she walked across the lawn, and I remember noticing that she moved with the free grace of an athletic boy. 'Who on earth's that? I asked Blaikie. 'That? Oh, one of the sisters, he said listlessly. 'There are squads of them. I can't tell one from another.
Captain Blaikie, directing operations with a walking-stick as if the whole affair were an Aldershot field-day, signalled to the Company to lie down, and began to unbutton a leather pouch in his belt. "You too, Bobby," he said; "and don't dare to move a muscle until you get the order!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking