up the graves and puttin' on the crosses, you get kind of thinkin' about things, and kind of lonesome, and so the boys keep telling the news to cheer themselves up, and that's how I heard about McCuaig. You see, McCuaig was snipin' the first tour, and he's a killer, you bet, and he had only cut three natches in his rifle. The boys say he had got four of the Huns, but he had only put down three natches on his rifle to be sure, and after he seen the machine gun work, stoppin' a raid, he comes to the officer, and says he, givin' him his rifle: 'Say, this is all right for sport, but it ain't good enough for killin' these devils. I'd like to get on to your gang, if I can,' and they put him right onto the machine gun. Say, he's sleepin' with that Lewis gun ever since. Just pets it like a baby. What was I tellin' you? Oh, yes, about McCuaig and Jim Berry. Well, he took McCuaig's place snipin' and a good sniper he was too. He used to hunt, you know, up in the mountains with Jim Knight every fall. Well, he started out snipin' the day after McCuaig quit, and McCuaig gave him his rifle too, and took him up to the 'hide.' Well, big Jim was always a careless cuss, you know. He gets his eye on the hole, sightin' his rifle, and McCuaig was watchin' through one of them new things--"

"Perry's scope."

"Yes, that's it, Paris cope. Them French is mighty smart fellows, you bet. When along walks a Hun. 'There he comes!' sings out McCuaig.

'Didn't see him until he got past,' says Jim, pretty mad, because Jim hated to show that he'd got 'buck fever,' or something, and waited for the next. 'Here he comes!' says McCuaig, again. 'Bang!' goes Jim. 'I've got him,' he shouts, hoppin' up to get a good look, when McCuaig grabs him and jerks him down, swearin' somethin' awful, and tellin' him he wasn't shootin' no mountain goats. 'Oh shaw!' says Jim. 'They can't get me.' 'You keep your head down, Jim,' said McCuaig. That's the very last words he said to him, just as he was leavin' him. He wasn't down the next day when bang! goes Jim's rifle, and again up he jumps to see what he'd got, when ping! goes a Boche bullet right through his head. You know McCuaig was real mad, and he stood quiet at that hole for three hours. Then he got Corporal Thom to shove up a hat on a rifle, when ping! comes the bullet and bang! goes Jim's rifle. 'Guess he won't shoot no more, unless there's shootin' in hell,' says he, and makes another natch. Say, the boys all felt bad about Jim and so did the Pilot. Well, we had to plant him that night, as we was goin' out next day. It was out beyond the Loop. You don't know where that is, I guess."

"Of course, I do," asserted Mackay indignantly. "I've been all around that front line. What are you givin' us!"

"Oh, you have, eh! Well, I wouldn't unless I had to, you bet. It's no place for a man with a waist line like mine. Well, as I was sayin', that cemetery was right out in the open, right under observation, and exposed to machine guns, snipers, whizbangs, all the hull bloody lot of 'em.

Wasn't no place for a cemetery anyway, I say. I'm not after any bomb proof job but a cemetery should be--"

"Should be a quiet and retired spot," suggested one of the transport boys.

"Yes. What's the use of getting livin' men shot up when they're buryin'

dead men, I want to know. Not saying anything about the officers that's always round, and the chaplain. I say a cemetery should be somewhere out of sight, like Maple Copse; now, there's a good place, except that the roots make it hard diggin'. Up against a railway bank like that down at Zillebeck, by the Railway Dugouts, there's a lovely place."

"How would the Ramparts do, sergeant?" enquired another transport lad.

"Ramparts? You mean at Ypres? Yes," said the sergeant, with a grin, "but I'd hate to turn out the Brigade Headquarters Staff."

"Go on, sergeant."

"Well, as I was sayin', that's no place for a cemetery up there beyond the Loop, but I didn't know so much about it then, you bet. That's where we had to bury Jim. It was a awful black night, and of course, just as we got out to the trench to go 'overland' to the cemetery, them flares started up something awful. I don't know what they was lookin' for, but when they went up, I want to tell you, I felt about the size of a tree, and I wisht I was one. Well, Jim, you know, was pretty heavy, an awful heavy carry he was for the boys. I was tryin' to hurry 'em along, but that Pilot, he heads the procession, and on he goes at a funeral march pace. Now I believe in doin' things right. I've heard of some pioneers that hurries their job. I don't believe in that, but when you are going across the open on a dark night, with them flares going up, I say between flares is a good time to get a move on, but, no, that there Pilot, he just goes that pace and no more. I want to tell you the boys was nervous and the officers too. The O. C. and Major Bustead was there.

I could see the major fussin' to get on. Well, we got Jim down all right, and just as the Pilot got started, darned if they didn't open up the biggest kind of a machine gun chorus you ever heard."

"What did you do, sergeant?"

"Me? Well, I started huggin' mud and saying all the good words I could think of. Even the O. C. got down on his knees, and the major, he near got into the grave, but that darned Pilot stood up there getting taller every minute, and goin' on with his prayer, and the boys sayin' 'Amen!'

that loud and emphatic that I thought he'd take the hint and cut out somethin', but cut out nothin'! Seemed as if his memory was workin'

over time, the way he kept a fetchin' up things that he could a easily forgot, and when he comes to the benediction, the whizbangs begin to come. Up goes his hand, the way they do. I thought to myself that that was a kind of unnecessary display. I looks up and there he was, more like a tree than ever. In fact, I says to myself--it's queer how you think things at times like that--darned if they won't think the darned fool is a tree, for nothin' but a darned tree would stand up in the flare light and look so much like a tree anyhow. I guess that's what saved him. He never moved until he was done, and then didn't he stay with us pioneers after the rest had gone until we filled up. Say, he's all right."

"You bet he's all right," said Sergeant Mackay, "and he's gettin' in his work with the boys."

"What do you mean, 'gettin' in his work'?" enquired the pioneer sergeant.

"Oh, well, you know," said Sergeant Mackay awkwardly, "he's makin' 'em think a lot different about things. I know he has 'em tied up all right in their language." And this was as near to a confession of faith as the sergeant cared to go.

"Oh, I can see a difference myself up the line," said the pioneer sergeant. "The boys used to get out of his way. He used to jump on 'em something fierce. You remember?"

"Huh-uh!"

"Well, they just love to have him drop in now and they tell him things.

I saw Corporal Thom the other night showin' him his girl's picture, and the Pilot thought she was a fine girl too, and got her address down, and said he was going to write her and tell her what a fine chap the corporal was, and you ought to see Corporal Thom swell up until he 'most bust his tunic."

"Oh, I know the corporal's dippy about the Pilot," said Sergeant Mackay.

"Yes, and the officers, too," said the pioneer sergeant. "There's Captain Duff. Well, you know what a holy terror he is."

"He's all right," said Sergeant Mackay stoutly. "He was my chief for about a month here, and he was the first one to get this transport licked into shape, you bet."

"I'm not saying anything against Captain Duff, but he was a roughneck, you know well enough, and I guess he hadn't much use for the Pilot."

"Oh, I know all about that," said Sergeant Mackay. "The Pilot used to go up with us on the transport. It was awful hard on Captain Duff, handlin'

the column and the mules and all the rest, to hold in when the Pilot was along. The captain, he had to come round now and then to the rear. There he would have a lovely time for a few minutes, with the Pilot safe up in front. But the Pilot calmed him down all right."

"Yes, and there's that young Captain Fraser," said the pioneer sergeant, with a note of enthusiasm in his monotonous voice. "There a soldier. He just loved fightin'. I remember the night he got his wound. It was on a raid of course. If there was a raid on, Captain Neil was sure to be there. He just about got his arm blown off, but they say he's goin' to be all right. I was at the regimental aid post when they fetched him in.

Oh, he was a dirty mess, face all cut up, and his arm hangin', and not a word out of him until the Pilot comes along. Then he begins to chirp up and the Pilot starts jollyin' him along one minute and sayin' Psalms to him the next minute, and little prayers, and the boys around listenin', sometimes grinnin' and sometimes all choked up, but I'm awful glad Captain Neil is comin' round all right."

By this time the pioneer sergeant had his crosses finished.

"Well," he said, as he set the crosses against the wall, "there's three of the finest officers we ever had in this battalion. You take 'em up to-night when you go, sergeant."

"We're not going up to-night. The boys are coming out this evening,"

replied Sergeant Mackay.

"No? Is that so? I never heard that. Guess I'll have to go up with some other outfit. Comin' out this evening? Well, it's time they were.

They've had one hell all the time, I hear, this tour."

"Yes," continued Sergeant Mackay, "and the highlanders are sending up their band to meet them and play them out. I call that a mighty fine thing to do. You know our own band had to go up with water and rations last night, and they can't get out until to-night. So the Highlanders'

band--"

"Pretty good band, too, isn't it?"

"Best pipe band in the army," said Sergeant Mackay with enthusiasm.

"Oh, a pipe band!" exclaimed the pioneer sergeant in a disappointed tone.

"Yes, a pipe band, what else?" enquired Sergeant Mackay truculently.

"Why don't they send up their real band, when they're doin' it, anyway?"

"What!" shouted Sergeant Mackay. "I'll tell you. For the same reason that they don't make you O. C. in this battalion, you damned fat lobster! There now, you've started me swearin' again, and I was quittin'

it."

Sergeant Mackay's wrath at the slur cast upon the pipe band, the only band, in his opinion, worthy of any real man's attention, was intensified by his lapse into his habit of profanity, which, out of deference to the Pilot, he for some weeks had been earnestly striving to hold in check.

"Oh well, Scotty, don't spoil your record for me. I guess a pipe band is all right for them that likes that kind of music. For me, I can't ever tell when they quit tunin' up and begin to play."

Sergeant Mackay looked at him with darkening face, evidently uncertain as to what course he should adopt--whether to "turn himself loose" upon this benighted Englishman or to abandon him to his deserved condition of fatuous ignorance. He decided upon the latter course. In portentous silence he turned his back upon Fatty Matthews and walked the whole length of the line to get a mule back over the rope. It took him some little time for the mule had his own mind about the manoeuvre and the sergeant was unwontedly deliberate and gentle with him. Then, the manoeuver executed, he walked slowly back to the pioneer sergeant and in restrained and carefully chosen speech addressed him.

"Look here, Fatty, I'm askin' you, don't you ever say things like that outside of these lines, for the sake of the regiment, you know. I'd really hate the other battalions to know we had got such--" He halted himself abruptly and then proceeded more quietly, "A man as you in this battalion. My God, Fatty, they'd think your brains had run down into your pants. I know they haven't, because I know you haven't any." He took a fresh breath, and continued his address in a tone of patient remonstrance. "Why, man, don't you know that wherever the British Army has gone, its Highland regiments have cleared the way; and that when the pipes get playin' the devil himself couldn't hold them back?"

"I don't wonder," said Fatty innocently. "They make a man feel like fightin' all right."

Sergeant Mackay scanned his face narrowly, uncertain as to whether he should credit the pioneer sergeant with intelligence sufficient to produce a sarcasm.

"What I mean is," exclaimed Fatty, seeking to appease the wrathful transport sergeant, "when you hear them pipes, you get so stirred up, you know, that you just feel like kullin' somebody."

This apparently did not improve matters with Sergeant Mackay.