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[Illustration: “‘Hold tight to the rail,’ Jim’s voice said in Nora’s ear.” (Page 67.)]
By MARY GRANT BRUCE Author of “Mates at Billabong,” “Norah of Billabong,” etc.
W A R D , L O C K & C O . , L I M I T E D LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO 1917
CHAP. PAGE I WAR..................................... 9 II YELLOW ENVELOPES........................ 30 III WHEN THE BOYS COME HOME................. 43 IV TO IRELAND.............................. 53 V INTO DONEGAL............................ 74 VI OF LITTLE BROWN TROUT................... 98 VII LOUGH ANOOR............................. 113 VIII JOHN O’NEILL............................ 131 IX PINS AND PORK........................... 147 X THE ROCK OF DOON........................ 161 XI NORTHWARD............................... 183 XII ASS-CART _VERSUS_ MOTOR................. 197 XIII THE CAVE AMONG THE ROCKS................ 213 XIV A FAMILY MATTER......................... 229 XV PLANS OF CAMPAIGN....................... 242 XVI THE FIGHT IN THE DAWN................... 248
“For one the laurel, one the rose, and glory for them all, All the gallant gentlemen who fight and laugh and fall.” MARGERY RUTH BETTS.
THE trench wound a sinuous way through the sodden Flanders mud. Underfoot were boards; and then sandbags; and then more boards, added as the mud rose up and swallowed all that was put down upon it. Some of the last-added boards had almost disappeared, ground out of sight by the trampling feet of hundreds of men: a new battalion had relieved, three nights before, the men who had held that part of the line for a week, and when a relief arrives, a trench becomes uncomfortably filled, and the ground underfoot is churned into deep glue. It was more than time to put down another floor; to which the only objection was that no more flooring material was available, and had there been, no one had time to fetch it.
It was the second trench. Beyond it was another, occupied by British soldiers: beyond that again, a mass of tangled barbed-wire, and then the strip of No-Man’s Land dividing the two armies—a strip ploughed up by shells and scarred with craters formed by the bursting of high explosives. Here and there lay rifles, and spiked German helmets, and khaki caps; but no living thing was visible save the cheeky Flemish sparrows that hopped about the quiet space, chirping and twittering as if trying to convince themselves and everybody else that War was hundreds of miles away. The sparrows carried out this pleasant deception every morning, abandoning the attempt as soon as the first German gun began what the British soldiers, disagreeably interrupted in frying bacon, termed “the breakfast hate.” Then they retreated precipitately to the sparrow equivalent to a dug-out, to meditate in justifiable annoyance on the curious ways of men.