Along that embankment we had climbed to reach the trenches, and not very far from the bit of trench in which I was singing, there was a railroad bridge of some strategic importance.  And now a shell hit that bridge—­not a whizz bang, but a real, big shell.  It exploded with a hideous screech, as if the bridge were some human thing being struck, and screaming out its agony.  The soldiers looked at me, and I saw some of them winking.  They seemed to be mighty interested in the way I was taking all this.  I looked back at them, and then at a Highland colonel who was listening to my singing as quietly and as carefully as if he had been at a stall in Covent Garden during the opera season.  He caught my glance.

“I think they’re coming it a bit thick, Lauder, old chap,” he remarked, quietly.

“I quite agree with you, colonel,” I said.  I tried to ape his voice and manner, but I wasn’t so quiet as he.

Now there came a ripping, tearing sound in the air, and a veritable cloudburst of the damnable whizz bangs broke over us.  That settled matters.  There were no orders, but everyone turned, just as if it were a meeting, and a motion to adjourn had been put and carried unanimously.  We all ran for the safety holes or dugouts in the side of the embankment.  And I can tell ye that the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour were no the last ones to reach those shelters!  No, we were by no means the last!

I ha’ no doot that I might have improved upon the shelter that I found, had I had time to pick and choose.  But any shelter was good just then, and I was glad of mine, and of a chance to catch my breath.  Afterward, I saw a picture by Captain Bairnsfather that made me laugh a good deal, because it represented so exactly the way I felt.  He had made a drawing of two Tommies in a wee bit of a hole in a field that was being swept by shells and missiles of every sort.  One was grousing to his mate, and the other said to him: 

“If you know a better ’ole go ’ide in it!”

I said we all turned and ran for cover.  But there was one braw laddie who did nothing of the sort.  He would not run—­such tricks were not for him!

He was a big Hie’land laddie, and he wore naught but his kilt and his semmet—­his undershirt.  He had on his steel helmet, and it shaded a face that had not been shaved or washed for days.  His great, brawny arms were folded across his chest, and he was smoking his pipe.  And he stood there as quiet and unconcerned as if he had been a village smith gazing down a quiet country road.  I watched him, and he saw me, and grinned at me.  And now and then he glanced at me, quizzically.

“It’s all right, Harry,” he said, several times.  “Dinna fash yoursel’, man.  I’ll tell ye in time for ye to duck if I see one coming your way!”

We crouched in our holes until there came a brief lull in the bombardment.  Probably the Germans thought they had killed us all and cleared the trench, or maybe it had been only that they hadn’t liked my singing, and had been satisfied when they had stopped it.  So we came out, but the firing was not over at all, as we found out at once.  So we went down a bit deeper, into concrete dugouts.