I had scarcely gone 10 yards when an
ear-splitting roar came hurtling through the air and an explosion
followed that made the very earth tremble. I knew it was somewhere in
the neighborhood of our selected spot and I anxiously hastened my
steps. I got there to find every man of my gun crew with one exception
blown to atoms, the exception being Scotty, but he too had paid the
supreme price. With the help of another soldier, we carried him to the
rear of the cookhouse and covered him with a blanket. When daylight
broke I went over there with a party to give him as decent a burial as
possible, and the new cook, who was a Scotchman, came out to have a look
at the dead pal.
"Well, if it isn't Jock Henderson!" he exclaimed.
"Did you know him?" I asked.
"Know him! Why, mon, we were bakers taegither in Glascae. I could tell
him anywhere by his bow-legs, an' he's got a scar on one o' them as big
as your face."
"Yes, I know he has, where the shell grazed him at Mons."
"Shell grazed him at Mons? Shell hell! It was a pan o' hot dough that
fell on his leg in the bake-shop, and I'll never forget his yell tae my
dyin' day.
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