_"At ---- we recaptured the portion of front line trench lost by us
some days ago."_--EXTRACT FROM DISPATCH.
"In a charge," said the Sergeant, "the 'Hotwater Guards' don't think
about going back till there's none of them left to go back; and you can
always remember this: if you go forward you _may_ die, if you go back
you _will_ die."
The memory of that phrase came back to Private Everton, tramping down
the dark road to the firing-line. Just because he had no knowledge of
how he himself would behave in this his baptism of fire, just because
he was in deadly fear that he would feel fear, or, still worse, show
it, he strove to fix that phrase firmly in front of his mind. "If I can
remember that," he thought, "it will stop me going back, anyway," and
he repeated: "If you go back you _will_ die, if you go back you _will_
die," over and over.
It is true that, for all his repetition, when a field battery, hidden
close by the side of the road on which they marched, roared in a sudden
and ear-splitting salvo of six guns, for the instant he thought he was
under fire and that a huge shell had burst somewhere desperately close
to them. He had jumped, his comrades assured him afterwards, a clear
foot and a half off the ground, and he himself remembered that his
first involuntary glance and thought flashed to the deep ditch that ran
alongside the road.
When he came to the trenches, at last, and filed down the narrow
communication-trench and into his Company's appointed position in the
deep ditch with a narrow platform along its front that was the forward
fire-trench, he remembered with unpleasant clearness that instinctive
start and thought of taking cover. By that time he had actually been
under fire, had heard the shells rush over him and the shattering noise
of their burst; had heard the bullets piping and humming and hissing
over the communication- and firing-trenches. He took a little comfort
from the fact that he had not felt any great fear then, but he had to
temper that by the admission that there was little to be afraid of
there in the shelter of the deep trench. It was what he would do and
feel when he climbed out of cover on to the exposed and bullet-swept
flat before the trench that he was in doubt about; for the Hotwaters
had been told that at nine o'clock there was to be a brief but intense
bombardment on a section of trench in front of them which had been
captured from us the day before, and which, after several
counter-attacks had failed, was to be taken that morning by this
battalion of Hotwaters.
At half-past eight, nobody entering their trench would have dreamed
that the Hotwaters were going into a serious action in half an hour.
The men were lounging about, squatting on the firing-step, chaffing and
talking--laughing even--quite easily and naturally; some were smoking,
and others had produced biscuits and bully beef from their haversacks
and were calmly eating their breakfast.
Everton felt a glow of pride as he looked at them. These men were his
friends, his fellows, his comrades: they were of the Hotwater
Guards--his regiment, and his battalion. He had heard often enough that
the Guards Brigades were the finest brigades in the Army, that this
particular brigade was the best of all the Guards, that his battalion
was the best of the Brigade. Hitherto he had rather deprecated these
remarks as savoring of pride and self-conceit, but now he began to
believe that they must be true; and so believing, if he had but known
it, he had taken another long step on the way to becoming the perfect
soldier, who firmly believes his regiment the finest in the world and
is ready to die in proof of the belief.
"Dusty Miller," the next file on his left, who was eating bread and
cheese, spoke to him.
"Why don't you eat some grab, Toffee?" he mumbled cheerfully, with his
mouth full. "In a game like this you never know when you'll get the
next chance of a bite."
"Don't feel particularly hungry," answered Toffee with an attempt to
appear as off-handed and casual and at ease as his questioner. "So I
think I'd better save my ration until I'm hungry."
Dusty Miller sliced off a wedge of bread with the knife edge against
his thumb, popped it in his mouth, and followed it with a corner of
cheese.
"A-ah!" he said profoundly, and still munching; "there's no sense in
saving rations when you're going into action. I'd a chum once that
always did that; said he got more satisfaction out of a meal when the
job was over and he was real hungry, and had a chance to eat in
comfort--more or less comfort. And one day we was for it he saved a tin
o' sardines and a big chunk of cake and a bottle of pickled onions that
had just come to him from home the day before; said he was looking
forward to a good feed that night after the show was over. And--and he
was killed that day!"
Dusty Miller halted there with the inborn artistry that left his climax
to speak for itself.
"Hard luck!" said Toffee sympathetically. "So his feed was wasted!"
"Not to say wasted exactly," said Dusty, resuming bread and cheese.
"Because I remembers to this day how good them onions was. Still it was
wasted, far as he was concerned--and he was particular fond o' pickled
onions."
But even the prospect of wasting his rations did nothing to induce
Toffee to eat a meal. The man on Toffee's right was crouched back on
the firing-step apparently asleep or near it. Dusty Miller had turned
and opened a low-toned conversation with the next man, the frequent
repetition of "I says" and "she says" affording some clew to the thread
of his story and inclining Toffee to believe it not meant for him to
hear. He felt he must speak to some one, and it was with relief that he
saw Halliday, the man on his other side, rouse himself and look up.
Something about Toffee's face caught his attention.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, leaning forward and speaking quietly.
"This is your first charge, isn't it!"
"Yes," said Toffee, "I'm all right. I--I think I'm all right."
The other moved slightly on the firing-step, leaving a little room, and
Toffee took this as an invitation to sit down. Halliday continued to
speak in low tones that were not likely to pass beyond his listener's
ear.
"Don't you get scared," he said. "You've nothing much to be scared
about."
He threw a little emphasis, and Toffee fancied a little envy, into the
"you."
"I'm not scared exactly," said Toffee. "I'm sort of wondering what it
will be like."
"I know," said Halliday, "I know; and who should, if I didn't? But I
can tell you this--you don't need to be afraid of shells, you don't
need to be afraid of bullets, and least of all is there any need to be
afraid of the cold iron when the Hotwaters get into the trench. You
don't need to be afraid of being wounded, because that only means home
and a hospital and a warm dry bed; you don't need to be afraid of
dying, because you've got to die some day, anyhow. There's only one
thing in this game to be afraid of, and there isn't many finds that in
their first engagement. It's the ones like me that get it."
Toffee glanced at him curiously and in some amazement. Now that he
looked closely, he could see that, despite his easy loungeful attitude
and steady voice, and apparently indifferent look, there was something
odd and unexplainable about Halliday: some faintest twitching of his
lips, a shade of pallor on his cheek, a hunted look deep at the back of
his eyes. Everton tried to speak lightly.
"And what is it, then, that the likes o' you get?"
Halliday's voice sank to little more than a whisper. "It's the fear o'
fear," he said steadily. "Maybe, you think you know what that is, that
you feel it yourself. You know what I mean, I suppose?"
Toffee nodded. "I think so," he said. "What I fear myself is that I'll
be afraid and show that I'm afraid, that I'll do something rotten when
we get out up there."
He jerked his head up and back towards the open where the rifles
sputtered and the bullets whistled querulously.
"There's plenty fear that," admitted Halliday, "before their first
action; but mostly it passes the second they leave cover and can't
protect themselves and have to trust to whatever there is outside,
themselves to bring them through. You don't know the beginning of how
bad the fear o' fear can be till you have seen dozens of your mates
killed, till you've had death no more than touch you scores of times,
like I have."
"But you don't mean to tell me," said Toffee incredulously, "that you
are afraid of yourself, that you can't trust yourself now? Why, I've
heard said often that you're one of the coolest under fire, and that
you don't know what fear is!"
"It's a good reputation to have if you can keep it," said Halliday.
"But it makes it worse if you can't."
"I wish," said Toffee enviously, "I was as sure of keeping it as you
are to-day."
Halliday pulled his hand from his pocket and held it beside him where
only Toffee could see it. It was quivering like a flag-halliard in a
stiff breeze. He thrust it back in his pocket.
"Doesn't look too sure, does it?" he said grimly. "And my heart is
shaking a sight worse than my hand."
He was interrupted by the arrival of a group of German shells on and
about the section of trench they were in. One burst on the rear lip of
the trench, spattering earth and bullets about them and leaving a
choking reek swirling and eddying along the trench. There was silence
for an instant, and then an officer's voice called from the near
traverse. "Is anybody hit there!" A sergeant shouted back "No, sir,"
and was immediately remonstrated with by an indignant private busily
engaged in scraping the remains of a mud clod from his eye.
"You might wait a minute, Sergeant," he said, "afore you reports no
casualties, just to give us time to look round and count if all our
limbs is left on. And I've serious doubts at this minute whether my eye
is in its right place or bulging out the back o' my head; anyway, it
feels as if an eight-inch Krupp had bumped fair into it."
When the explosion came, Toffee Everton had instinctively ducked and
crouched, but he noticed that Halliday never moved or gave a sign of
the nearness of any danger. Toffee remarked this to him.
"And I don't see," he confessed, "where that fits in with this
hand- and heart-shaking o' yours."
Halliday looked at him curiously.
"If that was the worst," he said, "I could stand it. It isn't. It isn't
the beginning of the least of the worst. If it had fell in the trench,
now, and mucked up half a dozen men, there'd have been something to
squeal about. That's the sort o' thing that breaks a man up--your own
mates that was talking to you a minute afore, ripped to bits and torn
to ribbons. I've seen nothing left of a whole live man but a pair o'
burnt boots. I've seen--" He stopped abruptly and shivered a little.
"I'm not going to talk about it," he said. "I think about it and see it
too often in my dreams as it is. And, besides," he went on, "I didn't
duck that time, because I've learnt enough to know it's too late to
duck when the shell bursts a dozen yards from you. I'm not so much
afraid of dying, either. I've got to die, I've little doubt, before
this war is out; I don't think there's a dozen men in this battalion
that came out with it in the beginning and haven't been home sick or
wounded since. I've seen one-half the battalion wiped out in one
engagement and built up with drafts, and the other half wiped out in
the next scrap. We've lost fifty and sixty and seventy per cent. of our
strength at different times, and I've come through it all without a
scratch. Do you suppose I don't know it's against reason for me to last
out much longer? But I'm not afraid o' that. I'm not afraid of the
worst death I've seen a man die--and that's something pretty bad,
believe me. What I'm afraid of is myself, of my nerve cracking, of my
doing something that will disgrace the Regiment."
The man's nerves were working now; there was a quiver of excitement in
his voice, a grayer shade on his cheek, a narrowing and a restless
movement of his eyes, a stronger twitching of his lips. More shells
crashed sharply; a little along the line a gust of rifle-bullets swept
over and into the parapet; a Maxim rap-rap-rapped and its bullets spat
hailing along the parapet above their heads.
Halliday caught his breath and shivered again.
"That," he said--"that is one of the devils we've got to face
presently." His eyes glanced furtively about him. "God!" he muttered,
"if I could only get out of this! 'Tisn't fair, I tell ye, it isn't
fair to ask a man that's been through what I have to take it on again,
knowing that if I do come through, 'twill be the same thing to go
through over and over until they get me; or until my own sergeant
shoots me for refusing to face it."
Everton had listened in amazed silence--an understanding utterly beyond
him. He knew the name that Halliday bore in the regiment, knew that he
was seeing and hearing more than Halliday perhaps had ever shown or
told to anyone. Shamefacedly and self-consciously, he tried to say
something to console and hearten the other man, but Halliday
interrupted him roughly.
"That's it!" he said bitterly. "Go on! Pat me on the back and tell me
to be a good boy and not to be frightened. I'm coming to it at last:
old Bob Halliday that's been through it from the beginning, one o' the
Old Contemptibles, come down to be mothered and hushaby-baby'd by a
blanky recruit, with the first polish hardly off his new buttons."
He broke off and into bitter cursing, reviling the Germans, the war,
himself and Everton, his sergeant and platoon commander, the O.C., and
at last the regiment itself. But at that the torrent of his oaths broke
off, and he sat silent and shaking for a minute. He glanced sideways at
last at the embarrassed Everton.
"Don't take no notice o' me, chum," he said. "I wasn't speaking too
loud, was I? The others haven't noticed, do you think? I don't want to
look round for a minute."
Everton assured him that he had not spoken too loud, that nobody
appeared to have noticed anything, and that none were looking their
way. He added a feeble question as to whether Halliday, if he felt so
bad, could not report himself as sick or something and escape having to
leave the trench.
Halliday's lips twisted in a bitter grin.
"That would be a pretty tale," he said. "No, boy, I'll try and pull
through once more, and if my heart fails me--look here, I've often
thought o' this, and some day, maybe, it will come to it."
He lifted his rifle and put the butt down in the trench bottom, slipped
his bayonet out, and holding the rifle near the muzzle with one hand,
with the other placed the point of the bayonet to the trigger of the
rifle. He removed it instantly and returned it to its place.
"There's always that," he said. "It can be done in a second, and no
matter how a man's hand shakes, he can steady the point of the bayonet
against the trigger-guard, push it down till the point pushes the
trigger home."
"Do you mean," stammered Everton in amazement--"do you mean--shoot
yourself?"
"Ssh! not so loud," cautioned Halliday. "Yes, it's better than being
shot by my own officer, isn't it?"
Everton's mind was floundering hopelessly round this strange problem.
He could understand a man being afraid; he was not sure that he wasn't
afraid himself; but that a man afraid that he could not face death
could yet contemplate certain death by his own hand, was completely
beyond him.
Halliday drew his breath in a deep sigh.
"We'll say no more about it," he said. "I feel better now; it's
something to know I always have that to fall back on at the worst. I'll
be all right now--until it comes the minute to climb over the parapet."
It was nearly nine o'clock, and word was passed down the line for every
man to get down as low as he could in the bottom of the trench. The
trench they were about to attack was only forty or fifty yards away,
and since the Heavies as well as the Field guns were to bombard, there
was quite a large possibility of splinters and fragments being thrown
by the lyddite back as far as the British trench. At nine, sharp to the
tick of the clock, the _rush, rush, rush_ of a field battery's shells
passed overhead. Because the target was so close, the passing shells
seemed desperately near to the British parapet, as indeed they actually
were. The rush of shells and the crash of their explosion sounded in
the forward trench before the boom of the guns which fired them
traveled to the British trench. Before the first round of this opening
battery had finished, another and another joined in, and then, in a
deluge of noise, the intense bombardment commenced.
Crouching low in the bottom of the trench, half deafened by the uproar,
the men waited for the word to move. The concentrated fire on this
portion of front indicated clearly to the Germans that an attack was
coming, and where it was to be expected. The obviously correct
procedure for the gunners was of course to have bombarded many sections
of front so that no certain clew would be given as to the point of the
coming attack. But this was in the days when shells were very, very
precious things, and gunners had to grit their teeth helplessly, doling
out round by round, while the German gun- and rifle-fire did its worst.
The Germans, then, could see now where the attack was concentrated, and
promptly proceeded to break it up before it was launched. Shells began
to sweep the trench where the Hotwater Guards lay, to batter at their
parapet, and to prepare a curtain of fire along their front.
Everton lay and listened to the appalling clamor; but when the word was
passed round to get ready, he rose to his feet and climbed to the
firing-step without any overpowering sense of fear. A sentence from the
man on his left had done a good deal to hearten him.
"Gostrewth! 'ark at our guns!" he said. "They ain't 'arf pitchin' it
in. W'y, this ain't goin' to be no charge; it's going to be a sort of
merry picnic, a game of ''Ere we go gatherin' nuts in May.' There won't
be any Germans left in them trenches, and we'll 'ave nothin' to do but
collect the 'elmets and sooveneers and make ourselves at 'ome."
"Did you hear that!" Everton asked Halliday. "Is it anyways true, do
you think?"
"A good bit," said Halliday. "I've never seen a bit of German front
smothered up by our guns the way this seems to be now, though I've
often enough seen it the other way. The trench in front should be
smashed past any shape for stopping our charge if the gunners are
making any straight shooting at all."
It was evident that the whole trench shared his opinion, and
expressions of amazed delight ran up and down the length of the
Hotwaters. When the order came to leave the trench, the men were up and
out of it with a bound.
Everton was too busy with his own scramble put to pay much heed to
Halliday; but as they worked out through their own barbed wire, he was
relieved to find him at his side. He caught Everton's look, and
although his teeth were gripped tight, he nodded cheerfully. Presently,
when they were forming into line again beyond the wire, Halliday spoke.
"Not too bad," he said. "The guns has done it for us this time. Come
on, now, and keep your wits when you get across."
In the ensuing rush across the open, Everton was conscious of no
sensation of fear. The guns had lifted their fire farther back as the
Hotwaters emerged from their trench, and the rush and rumble of their
shells was still passing overhead as the line advanced. The German
artillery hardly dared drop their range to sweep the advance, because
of its proximity to their own trench. A fairly heavy rifle-fire was
coming from the flanks, but to a certain extent that was kept down by
some of our batteries spreading their fire over those portions of the
German trench which were not being attacked, and by a heavy rifle- and
machine-gun fire which was pelted across from the opposite parts of the
British line.
From the immediate front, which was the Hotwaters' objective, there was
practically no attempt at resistance until the advance was half-way
across the short distance between the trenches, and even then it was no
more than a spasmodic attempt and the feeble resistance of a few rifles
and a machine-gun. The Hotwaters reached the trench with comparatively
slight loss, pushed into it, and over it, and pressed on to the next
line, the object being to threaten the continuance of the attack, to
take the next trench if the resistance was not too severe, and so to
give time for the reorganization of the first captured trench to resist
the German counter-attack.
Everton was one of the first to reach the forward trench. It had been
roughly handled by the artillery fire, and the men in it made little
show of resistance. The Hotwaters swarmed into the broken ditch,
shooting and stabbing the few who fought back, disarming the prisoners
who had surrendered with hands over their heads and quavering cries of
"Kamerad." Everton rushed one man who appeared to be in two minds
whether to surrender or not, fingering and half lifting his rifle and
lowering it again, looking round over his shoulder, once more raising
his rifle muzzle. Everton killed him with the bayonet. Afterwards he
climbed out and ran on, after the line had pushed forward to the next
trench. There was an awe, and a thrill of satisfaction in his heart as
he looked at his stained bayonet, but, as he suddenly recognized with a
tremendous joy, not the faintest sensation of being afraid. He looked
round grinning to the man next him, and was on the point of shouting
some jest to him, when he saw the man stumble and pitch heavily on his
face. It flashed into Everton's mind that he had tripped over a hidden
wire, and he was about to shout some chaffing remark, when he saw the
back of the man's head as he lay face down. But even that unpleasant
sight brought no fear to him.
There was a stout barricade of wire in front of the next trench, and an
order was shouted along to halt and lie down in front of it. The line
dropped, and while some lay prone and fired as fast as they could at
any loophole or bobbing head they could see, others lit bombs and
tossed them into the trench. This trench also had been badly mauled by
the shells, and the fire from it was feeble. Everton lay firing for a
few minutes, casting side glances on an officer close in front of him,
and on two or three men along the line who were coolly cutting through
the barbed wire with heavy nippers. Everton saw the officer spin round
and drop to his knees, his left hand nursing his hanging right arm.
Everton jumped up and went over to him.
"Let me go on with it, sir," he said eagerly, and without waiting for
any consent stooped and picked up the fallen wire-cutters and set to
work. He and the others, standing erect and working on the wire,
naturally drew a heavy proportion of the aimed fire; but Everton was
only conscious of an uplifting exhilaration, a delight that he should
have had the chance at such a prominent position. Many bullets came
very close to him, but none touched him, and he went on cutting wire
after wire, quickly and methodically, grasping the strand well in the
jaws of the nippers, gripping till the wire parted and the severed ends
sprang loose, calmly fitting the nippers to the next strand.
Even when he had cut a clear path through, he went on working, widening
the breach, cutting more wires, dragging the trailing ends clear. Then
he ran back to the line and to the officer who had lain watching him.
"Your wire-nippers, sir," he said. "Shall I put them in your case for
you?"
"Stick them in your pocket, Everton," said the youngster; "you've done
good work with them. Now lie down here."
All this was a matter of no more than three or four minutes' work. When
the other gaps were completed--the men in them being less fortunate
than Everton and having several wounded during the task--the line rose,
rushed streaming through the gaps and down into the trench. If
anything, the damage done by the shells was greater there than in the
first line, mainly perhaps because the heavier guns had not hesitated
to fire on the second line where the closeness of the first line to the
British would have made risky shooting. There were a good many dead and
wounded Germans in this second trench, and of the remainder many were
hidden away in their dug-outs, their nerves shaken beyond the
sticking-point of courage by the artillery fire first, and later by the
close-quarter bombing and the rush of the cold steel.
The Hotwaters held that trench for some fifteen minutes. Then a weak
counter-attack attempted to emerge from another line of trenches a good
two hundred yards back, but was instantly fallen upon by our artillery
and scourged by the accurate fire of the Hotwaters. The attack broke
before it was well under way, and scrambled back under cover.
Shortly afterwards the first captured trench having been put into some
shape for defense, the advance line of the Hotwaters retired. A small
covering party stayed and kept up a rapid fire till most of the others
had gone, and then climbed through the trench and doubled back after
them.
The officer, whose wire-cutters Everton had used, had been hit rather
badly in the arm. He had made light of the wound, and remained in the
trench with the covering party; but when he came to retire, he found
that the pain and loss of blood had left him shaky and dizzy. Everton
helped him to climb from the trench; but as they ran back he saw from
the corner of his eye that the officer had slowed to a walk. He turned
back and, ignoring the officer's advice to push on, urged him to lean
on him. It ended up by Everton and the officer being the last men in,
Everton half supporting, half carrying the other. Once more he felt a
childish pleasure at this opportunity to distinguish himself. He was
half intoxicated with the heady wine of excitement and success, he
asked only for other and greater and riskier opportunities. "Risk," he
thought contemptuously, "is only a pleasant excitement, danger the
spice to the risk." He asked his sergeant to be allowed to go out and
help the stretcher-bearers who were clearing the wounded from the
ground over which the first advance had been made.
"No," said the Sergeant shortly. "The stretcher-bearers have their job,
and they've got to do it. Your job is here, and you can stop and do
that. You've done enough for one day." Then, conscious perhaps that he
had spoken with unnecessary sharpness, he added a word. "You've made a
good beginning, lad, and done good work for your first show; don't
spoil it with rank gallery play."
But now that the German gunners knew the British line had advanced and
held the captured trench, they pelted it, the open ground behind it,
and the trench that had been the British front line, with a storm of
shell-fire. The rifle-fire was hotter, too, and the rallied defense was
pouring in whistling stream of bullets. But the captured trench, which
it will be remembered was a recaptured British one, ran back and joined
up with the British lines. It was possible therefore to bring up plenty
of ammunition, sandbags, and reinforcements, and by now the defense had
been sufficiently made good to have every prospect of resisting any
counter-attack and of withstanding the bombardment to which it was
being subjected. But the heavy fire drove the stretcher-bearers off the
open ground, while there still remained some dead and wounded to be
brought in.
Everton had missed Halliday, and his anxious inquiries failed to find
him or any word of him, until at last one man said he believed Halliday
had been dropped in the rush on the first trench. Everton stood up and
peered back over the ground behind them. Thirty yards away he saw a man
lying prone and busily at work with his trenching-tool, endeavoring to
build up a scanty cover. Everton shouted at the pitch of his voice,
"Halliday!" The digging figure paused, lifted the trenching-tool and
waved it, and then fell to work again. Everton pressed along the
crowded trench to the sergeant.
"Sergeant," he said breathlessly, "Halliday's lying out there wounded,
he's a good pal o' mine and I'd like to fetch him in."
The Sergeant was rather doubtful. He made Everton point out the digging
figure, and was calculating the distance from the nearest point of the
trench, and the bullets that drummed between.
"It's almost a cert you get hit," he said, "even if you crawl out. He's
got a bit of cover and he's making more, fast. I think--"
A voice behind interrupted, and Everton and the Sergeant turned to find
the Captain looking up at them.
"What's this?" he repeated, and the Sergeant explained the position.
"Go ahead!" said the Captain. "Get him in if you can, and good luck to
you."
Everton wanted no more. Two minutes later he was out of the trench and
racing back across the open.
"Come on, Halliday," he said. "I'll give you a hoist in. Where are you
hit?"
"Leg and arm," said Halliday briefly; and then, rather ungraciously,
"You're a fool to be out here; but I suppose now you're here, you might
as well give me a hand in."
But he spoke differently after Everton had given him a hand, had lifted
him and carried him, and so brought him back to the trench and lowered
him into waiting hands. His wounds were bandaged and, before he was
carried off, he spoke to Everton.
"Good-by, Toffee," he said and held out his left hand, "I owe you a
heap. And look here---" He hesitated a moment and then spoke in tones
so low that Everton had to bend over the stretcher to hear him. "My
leg's smashed bad, and I'm done for the Front and the old Hotwaters. I
wouldn't like it to get about--I don't want the others to think--to
know about me feeling--well, like I told you back there before the
charge."
Toffee grabbed the uninjured-hand hard. "You old frost!" he said gayly,
"there's no need to keep it up any longer now; but I don't mind telling
you, old man, you fairly hoaxed me that time, and actually I believed
what you were saying. 'Course, I know better now; but I'll punch the
head off any man that ever whispers a word against you."
Halliday looked at him queerly. "Good-by, Toffee," he said again, "and
thank ye."