t 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