arrival of three high-velocity shells.
"I'll bet that's not far from A Battery," called Wilde, jumping up; and
then settled down again to his cold beef and pickles.
"First he's sent over to-day," said the adjutant. "He's been awfully
quiet these last two days."
Manning had brought in the bread-and-butter and apple pudding that
Meddings had made to celebrate his return from leave, when the door
opened abruptly. Gillespie, the D.A. gas officer stood there. It was
the habit to complain with mock-seriousness that Gillespie timed his
visits with our meal-times. I had begun calling "Here he is again,"
when something drawn, something staring in his lean Scotch face,
stopped me. I thought he was ill.
The adjutant and Wilde were gazing curiously at him. My eyes left his
face. I noticed that his arms were pushed out level with his chest; he
grasped an envelope between the thumb and forefinger of each hand. His
lower jaw had fallen; his lips moved, and no sound came from them.
The three of us at the table rose to our feet. All our faculties were
lashed to attention.
Gillespie made a sort of gulp. "I've got terrible news," he said at
last.
I believe that one thought, and only one thought, circuited through the
minds of the adjutant, Wilde, and myself: The colonel!--we knew! we
knew!
"The colonel----" went on Gillespie. His face twitched.
Wilde was first to speak. "Wounded?" he forced himself to ask, his eyes
staring.
"Killed!--killed!" said Gillespie, his voice rising to a hoarse wail.
Then silence. Gillespie reached for a chair and sank into it.
I heard him, more master of himself, say labouringly, "Down at the
bridge near A Battery.... He and another colonel ... both killed ...
they were standing talking.... I was in A Battery mess.... A direct
hit, I should think."
The adjutant spoke in crushed awestruck tones. "It must have been
Colonel B----."
I did not speak. I could not. I thought of the colonel as I had known
him, better than any of the others: his gentleness, his honourableness,
his desire to see good in everything, his quiet collected bravery, the
clear alertness of his mind, the thoroughness with which he followed
his calling of soldier; a man without a mean thought in his head; a
true soldier who had received not half the honours his gifts deserved,
yet grumbled not. Ah! no one passed over in the sharing out of honours
and promotions could complain if he paused to think of the colonel.
I stared through the window at the bright sunlight. Dimly I became
aware that Gillespie had laid the envelope upon the table, and heard
him say he had found it lying in the roadway. I noticed the
handwriting: the last letter the colonel had received from his wife. It
must have been blown clean out of his jacket pocket; yet there it was,
uninjured.
The adjutant's voice, low, solemn, but resolved--he had his work to do:
"It is absolutely certain it was the colonel? There is no shadow of
doubt? I shall have to report to 'Don Ack'!"
"No shadow of doubt," replied Gillespie hopelessly, moving his head
from side to side.
Wilde came to me and asked if I would go with him to bring in the body.
I shook my head. Life out here breeds a higher understanding of the
mystic division between soul and body; one learns to contemplate the
disfigured dead with a calmness that is not callousness. But this was
different. How real a part he had played in my life these last two
years! I wanted always to be able to recall him as I had known him
alive--the slow wise smile, the crisp pleasant voice! I thought of that
last note to his little son; I thought of the quiet affection in his
voice when he spoke of keeping in touch with those who had shared the
difficulties and the hardships of the life we had undergone. I recalled
how he and I had carried a stretcher and searched for a dying officer
at Zillebeke--the day I was wounded,--and how, when I was in hospital,
he had written saying he was glad we had done our bit that day; I
thought of his happy faith in a Christmas ending of the war. The
hideous cruelty of it to be cut off at the very last, when all that he
had given his best in skill and energy to achieve was in sight!
* * * * *
The shuffling tramp outside of men carrying a blanket-covered
stretcher. They laid it tenderly on the flagstones beneath the
sun-warmed wall of the house.
Wilde, his face grave, sad, desolate, walked through the mess to his
room. I heard him rinsing his hands. A chill struck at my vitals.
* * * * *
It is finished. The colonel is dead. There is nothing more to write.
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
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| Typographical errors corrected in text: |
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| Page 11: prs. replaced with pdrs. |
| Page 55: warefare replaced with warfare |
| Page 68: excedingly replaced with exceedingly |
| Page 122: neigbourhood replaced with neighbourhood |
| Page 165: Abbaye Theleme replaced with Abbaye Theleme |
| Page 259: Epehy replaced with Epehy |
| Page 276: connter replaced with counter |
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| Page 63: Note that a Graphophone was a version of the |
| phonograph, invented by Chichester Bell and |
| Charles S. Tainter. |
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