Ye'll be minding hoo black things looked for a while, when they broke our British line, or bent it back, rather, where the Fifth Army kept the watch?
Mind you, I'd been over all that country our armies had reclaimed frae the Hun in the long Battle o' the Somme.

My boy John, the wean I'd seen grow frae a nursling in his mither's arms, had focht in that battle.
He'd been wounded, and come hame tae his mither to be nursed back to health.

She'd done that, and she'd blessed him, and kissed him gude bye, and he'd gone oot there again.

And--that time, he stayed.

There's a few words I can see, written on a bit o' yellow paper, each time I close ma een.
"Captain John Lauder, killed, December 28.