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ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN' 207
watched, from different battery positions, our soldiers making the German trenches uncomfortable. I actually fired one of the British guns myself. When I had more or less recovered from the tremendous shock of the discharge Hogge, who had a pair of field-glasses at his eyes, swore that a German was coming over No Man's Land bearing in one hand a white flag and in the other a cocoanut ! I had, he said, hit the bull's eye!
At Auhigny was the rest camp of the Fifteenth Division made up of Scottish troops second only in reputation to the redoubtable Fifty-first, or Highland Division. We were billed to give a concert here, and again I had a most cordial reception. Later in the evening our party, with many of the Scottish officers on rest-leave, were invited to a picturesque old chateau occupied by a French lady and her daughter who had point-blank refused to abandon their home for some safer territory farther away from the war area. The beautiful drawing-room was lit by candles and it was crowded with officers in kilts of different tartans reminding me for all the world of a social gathering of Scottish chiefs during the '45 Rebellion. Any one of the younger officers present might conceivably have been Bonnie Prince Charlie. I sang several songs. The scene when I gave the final toast to "our brave hostess and her lovely daughter" will long live in my memory.
Before leaving France after a most interesting and fortifying experience with our soldier lads I was able, as I had hoped, to visit John's grave. My companions went with me as far as the little cemetery at Ovillers, on the AlbertPeronne Road. There, like the thoughtful and kindly men they are, they left me and I fought out my battle alone.