On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms by Innes Logan
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page 13 of 57 (22%)
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this service are all dead: one fell at Loos, one in Mesopotamia, and one
on the Somme. The oldest of them, who was an officer in a Guards battalion, could not speak and his eyes were full of tears. There was no possibility here of the remark that one Lowlander made to another after listening to a very celebrated London preacher: 'Aye, it was beautiful, and he cud mak' ye see things too, whiles; but, man! there was nae _logic_ in 't.' It was about this time that we heard of the sinking of the _Lusitania_. Somehow from this moment we knew better where we were and for what we fought. Every one's thoughts were very grim. This was sheer naked wickedness done plainly and coldly in the sight of God and man. III '_You can hear them now_' One broiling afternoon as I sat talking with a friend in my tent an orderly came to the door and said to him, 'Message for you, sir.' He glanced at it. It was his orders to join his battalion at the front. We shook hands and he went off, glad to be on the move again after hanging about waiting so long. In five minutes the orderly was back with orders for me to proceed at once to the 2nd London Territorial Casualty Clearing Station. I said good-bye to Adams, my servant. No man was ever more fortunate in his batmen--Adams, a typical regular, fiercely proud of his regiment; Campion, the London Territorial, a commercial traveller in civil life; and Munro, the Royal Scot, who within a month or two of the outbreak of war could no longer suppress the fighting spirit of the Royal Regiment stirring within him, and voluntarily rejoined, leaving a |
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