Supposing the son knew the real Blaikie! I asked the name of the boy's battalion, and was told the 10th Seaforths.

That wasn't pleasant hearing, for they had been brigaded with us on the Somme.

But Colonel Broadbury--for he told me his name--volunteered another piece of news which set my mind at rest.

The boy was not yet twenty, and had only been out seven months.

At Arras he had got a bit of shrapnel in his thigh, which had played the deuce with the sciatic nerve, and he was still on crutches.
We spun over ridges of moorland, always keeping northward, and brought up at a pleasant white-washed house close to the sea.