Free A Test to Destruction by Henry Williamson Page A

crawling to the door faded.
    When he recovered he heard remote voices and was conscious of his chattering teeth and of arms bearing him away. He awoke into candle light, Allen offering him a cup of tea. Recalling something of the night before, he told himself that he was weak, weak, weak; so much for his good resolutions. What would Westy say? His head was aching, tea made it feel less pressed upon. “Who got me here? I suppose I was blotto?”
    “You were poisoned by the fumes of that stove. Colonel Moggerhanger found you lying on the floor, he went back when he realized that his own stove had filled his hut with carbon-monoxide fumes.”
    “Then I owe the old boy my life! And I wasn’t blotto after all!”
    “No. The M.O. said it was a case of poisoning.”
    “Thank God!”
    “I thought you’d want to be up to see the battalion arrive. They’re on the way down.”
    Phillip was soon shaved, washed, and dressed. Then to breakfast, which he had to forsake half-way through; but returning with emptied belly to the mess room, found that the headache was gone and his appetite, after a bite of bread and butter, keen. Afterwards a visit to the tailor’s shop, to have the regimental and divisional flashes—colour patterns—sewn on shoulders and behind tunic collar; and then to join the cadre officers, including the new draft, who were walking out along the track down which the battalion would come.
    The sky was beginning to turn pink; flights of scout planes were climbing overhead, already golden in the rays of the sun invisible from below. “Quiet morning,” said Phillip. “What do they say, ‘Red at dawning, shepherd’s warning’?” The wind was from the north-west, already the sky behind them was dull for another day. Sleet wandered down the sky. Then a cyclist was seen through the low haze, coming towards them. He drew up, leapt off, stood to attention, “Battalion just passing Bluet Field Ambulance, sir!”
    As they stood under a sky now rising gold in the east but still louring dark over their shoulders Phillip heard the faint throb ofdrums. After the night of almost continuous gun-fire, the slight sound was strangely moving. Looking back the way they had come, he saw other figures along the track; transport drivers, who had been going up when the box-barrage was put round the Bird Gage and the raid started, had come along to find out what had happened to their chums.
    The thin almost feeble wail of the pipes was heard above the throb of side-drums, but still nothing was visible in the frozen mist. The sound died away, then came again; now it was only the drums— rataplan, rataplan, ratapattaplan —swelling and diminishing as though with the contours of the ground.
    The head of the battalion appeared suddenly, and he thought the drum-skins must have been damp. In front walked the sergeant drummer: behind the band came an uneven column of khaki figures. When about a hundred yards distant from the camp entrance, upon the area of ground worn bare of grass, now faintly speckled with sleet, drum-sticks were raised, polished brass instruments held to mouths, long silver stick of drum-major held aloft as the band wheeled to a flank. Down came the silver stick, drums broke into roll, and from brass instruments, now brazed, soldered, and patched, came the regimental march, Colonel Bogey.
    Past the stationary band came the battalion, led by ‘Spectre’ on foot, his one eye staring ahead under the rim of his helmet. He took the salute, his face white and set. Behind him walked an officer Phillip remembered at Landguard, Denis Sisley, looking haggard and ill. Rows of bloodshot eyes followed, boots and puttees clogged with mud thrust desperately against drag, puffy faces smeared, trousers ripped by barbed wire and bomb splinter, helmets askew, rifles slung, greatcoats gashed, tunics showing dried blood. Was this all the battalion—under four hundred?
    In the rear came a limping captain, knitted scarf round neck and