en ah saw me pal knocked over. He comed fra oor toon, and
he tellt me hissen the neet afore: 'Jock,' 'e said, 'tha'll write to me
wife, woan't tha?' And ah said, 'Doan't be a fule, Ben, tha'll be all
right.' 'Noa, Jock,' he tellt me, 'ah knaw'd afore ah left heeam ah
should be killt. Ah saw a mouldiwarp[21] dead afore oor door; me wife
fair dithered[22] when she saw't.'"

The chaplain and myself looked puzzled. "It's a kind o' sign among the
fouk in our parts, sir," he proceeded, enlightening our ignorance. "And
'e asked me to take his brass for the wife. But ah thowt nowt of it. And
we lost oor connectin' files and were nobbut two platoons, and we got it
somethin' cruel; the shells were a-skirling[23] like peewits ower our
heids. And Ben were knocked over and 'e never said a ward. And then ah
got fair daft."

There was silence for a moment.

"I found this," suddenly interrupted a despatch-rider. He was a
fair-spoken youth, obviously of some education. He explained, in reply
to our interrogatories, that he was a despatch-rider attached to a
Signal Company of the R.E. He produced a cap, apparently from nowhere,
by mere sleight of hand. It was greasy, weather-stained, and in no
respect different from a thousand such Army caps. It bore the badge and
superscription of the R.E. We looked at it indifferently as he held it
out with an eleemosynary gesture.

"A collection will now be taken," said the Hoxton man with a grin.

But the despatch-rider did not laugh. "I found this cap," he said
gravely, "on Monday, September 7th, in a house near La Ferte. We stopped
there for four hours while the artillery were in action. We saw a broken
motor bicycle outside a house to which the people pointed. We went in.
We found one of our despatch-riders with an officer's sword sticking in
him. Our section officer asked the people about it, and they told him
that the despatch-rider arrived late one night, having lost his way and
knocked at the door of the house. There were German officers billeted
there. They let him in, and then they stuck him up against a wall and
cut him up. He had fifteen sabre-cuts," he added quietly.

No one laughed any more. We all crowded round to look at that tragic
cap. "The number looks like one--nought--seven--something," said the
chaplain, adjusting his glasses, "but I can't make out the rest." "Poor
lad," he added softly. No one spoke. But I saw a look in the eyes of the
men around me that boded ill for the