That train was a record. It stopped at every station, and in the
afternoon it simply got tired and sat down in the middle of a moor
and reflected for an hour. I stuck my head out of the window now
and then, and smelt the rooty fragrance of bogs, and when we
halted on a bridge I watched the trout in the pools of the brown
river. Then I slept and smoked alternately, and began to get
furiously hungry.

Once I woke to hear the soldiers discussing the war. There was
an argument between a lance-corporal in the Camerons and a sapper
private about some trivial incident on the Somme.

'I tell ye I was there,' said the Cameron. 'We were relievin' the
Black Watch, and Fritz was shelling the road, and we didna get up
to the line till one o'clock in the mornin'. Frae Frickout Circus to
the south end o' the High Wood is every bit o' five mile.'

'Not abune three,' said the sapper dogmatically.

'Man, I've trampit it.'

'Same here. I took up wire every nicht for a week.'

The Cameron looked moodily round the company. 'I wish there
was anither man here that kent the place. He wad bear me out.
These boys are no good, for they didna join till later. I tell ye it's
five mile.'

'Three,' said the sapper.