They had a sudden expression of surprise and protest. Death doesn’t often disturb me now-a-days, but I couldn’t tear that scarlet mark across the throat.—One day at the wagon-lines being chaffed for having come into the army late—the next night dead! Poor laddie! I don’t know who you are or where you came from. If I could have prevented it, things shouldn’t have happened this way. They ought to have given you a better run for your money. I’m sorry.
The horses are snorting and jumping back against the reins, so I switch off my flashlight and cover up the face.
“Have any arrangements been made?” I ask.
They tell me “None”—the accident only happened within the last half-hour.
“Then one of you will have to mount it in front of you. Hand it over to the Captain of the relieving battery. He’ll have to see to its burial: we march within the next three hours.... Where’s the Major?”
I learn that he’s still at the guns, so I tell my groom to lead on down the road to the battery-position and I order the rest of the party to get mounted. As I turn to take a short-cut through the rusty wire of old defenses and the water-logged craters of unrecorded fights, I glance back to catch the silhouettes of the horsemen as they ride towards the red lip of the horizon, with the drooping body hanging sack-like in front of the last rider’s saddle. An inconspicuous ending to one lad’s dreams of glory! He won’t be here for the counter-stroke. Letters from home will arrive full of anxiety and affection. They’ll have to be returned unread and unopened. The old, sad story! And yet, who knows! Perhaps he’s lucky.
Ahead of me in the misty vagueness of the chalk lies a ray of light like a golden dagger. I slide down into a trench, which was the Hun front-line. Poppies and cornflowers grow in tufts along its sides. Beneath my feet I feel the slats of duckboard. Dug back into the wall is a six-foot square room, with anti-gas blankets hung before it. The curtain which they form has not been properly adjusted; from between its edges light escapes. I lift the curtain and enter.
About a trench-made table a group of officers are seated. All of them are strangers to me except my Major; they’re the new chaps who are taking over
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