They were stretcher-bearers—­Australian stretcher-bearers.  The two pair on the bank already had their load, and the others were lifting theirs up thither.  They were just setting out to carry their burden overland on a track which led straight to the barrage which had turned us back.

I learned more about Australian stretcher-bearers that morning than I had known since the first week in Gallipoli.  I cursed my fate that I was not permitted to have a camera there, to prove to Australians that these things are true.  As luck would have it, the next time I saw that same scene the British official photographer was beside me.  We saw the smoke of a barrage on the skyline.  And coming straight from it were two little parties each headed by a flag.

We hurried to the place—­and there it is on record, in the photograph for every man to see some day just as we saw it, the little party coming down the open with the angry shells behind them.

I asked those stretcher-bearers as I looked up at the shell-bursts how the Germans treated them.

“They don’t snipe us so long as we have this flag,” one of them said.  “You see, we started it by not firing on theirs when they came out to their wounded.  Of course, we can’t help the artillery,” he added, looking over his shoulder at the place from which he had come, where a line of black shell-bursts was fringing the hill.  “That’s not meant for us.”

That understanding, if you can maintain it honourably and trust the enemy to do the same, means everything—­everything—­to the wounded of both sides.  The commander who, sitting safely at his table, condemns his wounded and the enemy’s in No Man’s Land to death by slow torture without grounds for suspecting trickery, would incur a responsibility such as few men would face the thought of.

Load after load, day and night, mile upon mile in and out of craters across the open and back again—­assuredly the Australian stretcher-bearer has not degenerated since he made his name glorious amongst his fellow soldiers at Gallipoli.  Hear them speak of him.

CHAPTER XXII

OUR NEIGHBOUR

France, October 10th.

There are next to us at present some Scotsmen.

Australians and New Zealanders have fought alongside of many good mates in this war.  I suppose the 29th Division and the Navy and the Indian Mountain Batteries and Infantry were their outstanding friends in Gallipoli.  In France—­the artillery of a certain famous regular division.  And the Scotsmen.

It is quite remarkable how the Australian seems to forgather with the Scotsman wherever in France he meets him.  You will see them sharing each other’s canteens at the base, yarning round each other’s camp fires at the front.  Wherever the pipers are, there will the Australians be gathered together.

I asked an Australian the other day how it was that he and his mates had struck up such a remarkable friendship with some of these Highland regiments now camped near them.  “Well, I think it’s their sense of humour,” he said.