"This is no a debatin' society," he said. "But ye'll no walk ye maun
just drive."

Without further words he thrust the pistol in his pocket, grabbed and
took one handful of coat at the back of the officer's neck and another
at the skirt, and commenced to thrust him before him across the open
ground. But the officer refused to walk, and would have thrown himself
down if Macalister's grasp had not prevented it.

"Ye would, would ye?" growled the Scot, and seized his captive by the
shoulders and shook him till his teeth rattled. "Now," he said angrily,
"ye'll come wi' me or--" he broke off to fling a gigantic arm about the
officer's neck--"or I'll pull the heid aff ye."

So it was that the occupants of the British trench viewed presently the
figure of a huge Highlander appearing through the drifting haze and
smoke at a trot, a head clutched close to his side by a circling arm, a
struggling German half-running, half-dragging behind his captor.

Arrived at the parapet, "Here," shouted Macalister. "Catch, some o'
ye." He jerked his prisoner forward and thrust him over and into the
trench, and leaped in after him.

It was purely on impulse that Private Macalister flung his prisoner out
of the German trench, but it was a set and reasoned purpose that made
him drag his struggling captive back over the open to the British
trench. He knew that the British line would not shoot at an obvious
kilted Highlander, and he supposed that the Germans would hesitate to
fire on one dragging an equally obvious German officer behind him.
Either his reasoning or his blind luck held true, and both he and his