The following sequel convinced me of that. Some time afterwards, in writing to a sister of mine, I related the remarkable vision I had seen in the trench, and, in her reply, she informed me that it was in the small hours of the morning of August 16th, nine years previously, that my mother died, about the same time as I saw the vision or form of a woman in the trench. She reminded me of a fact I had quite overlooked. In summing up the whole thing, I am convinced that the form I saw was no kilted Highlander, but the spirit of my own dear mother come to warn me of impending danger. How else can I account for that feeling of uneasiness, that sense of impending disaster, that strong presentiment of something about to happen, and, above all, that irresistible desire to leave the post? Thank God, I did; for through the instrumentality of that spiritual warning, not only was my own life spared but my friend Stewart's as well. Is There an Explanation? I don’t know if the thing I saw could be called a ghost. I’ve never really made up my mind about it. It may, for all I know, have a perfectly proper scientific explanation, but it struck me as remarkably eerie at the time. It was a ghostly place anyway—the Somme, in 1918, when for the last time “Jerry” was being followed back across the old familiar ground. It was daylight—a day of sunshine—and I was reporting to company headquarters from one reserve line to another, across the open, when the shells began to fall. In appropriate rabbit-fashion I dived for the nearest shell hole. There was a dead man in that shell hole, lying on his back, staring up at the unquiet sky. An unpleasant neighbour, no doubt; but when shells were about one stayed where one was reasonably safe. Naturally enough I stared at the dead man, and then I noticed a peculiar thing. I have said that the man was lying on his back, but that was not exactly the case. The shell hole was a very large one and very old. In the bottom there was a coil of rusty wire. The face, and upper part of the body—for that was all I noticed—was pillowed upon the wire and the spear points of the grass that had grown under and about the coil. The face struck me as the most ethereal and delicate I had ever seen. I don't know exactly how to explain it; the dead man’s face appeared as though woven of some ethereal flesh-coloured cob-web, spun on the points of the grass and wire, and the light seemed to go right through the delicate skin. I stared at it quite fascinated, and, after a while, the fascination overcame me. I simply had to touch the face to see if it was real. I plucked a piece of coarse grass that was growing in the hole and, stretching across, stroked the face—and, immediately, it vanished.