is occasion. He'd kept close up to me all the
time, I realised. And then old Park turned up very cheerful with a weak
bayonet jab in his forearm that he wanted me to rebandage. It was good
to see him practically all right too.

"'I took two prisoners,' I said, and everybody I spoke to I told that. I
was fearfully proud of it.

"I thought that if I could take two prisoners in my first charge I was
going to be some soldier.

"I had stood it all admirably. I didn't feel a bit shaken. I was as
tough as anything. I'd seen death and killing, and it was all just
hockey.

"And then that confounded Ortheris must needs go and get killed.

"The shell knocked me over, and didn't hurt me a bit. I was a little
stunned, and some dirt was thrown over me, and when I got up on my knees
I saw Jewell lying about six yards off--and his legs were all smashed
about. Ugh! Pulped!

"He looked amazed. 'Bloody,' he said, 'bloody.' He fixed his eyes on me,
and suddenly grinned. You know we'd once had two fights about his saying
'bloody,' I think I told you at the time, a fight and a return match,
he couldn't box for nuts, but he stood up like a Briton, and it appealed
now to his sense of humour that I should be standing there too dazed to
protest at the old offence. 'I thought _you_ was done in,' he said. 'I'm
in a mess--a bloody mess, ain't I? Like a stuck pig. Bloody--right
enough. Bloody! I didn't know I 'ad it _in_ me.'

"He looked at me and grinned with a sort of pale satisfaction in keeping
up to the last--dying good Ortheris to the finish. I just stood up
helpless in front of him, still rather dazed.

"He said something about having a thundering thirst on him.

"I really don't believe he felt any pain. He would have done if he had
lived.

"And then while I was fumbling with my water-bottle, he collapsed. He
forgot all about Ortheris. Suddenly he said something that cut me all to
ribbons. His face puckered up just like the face of a fretful child
which refuses to go to bed. 'I didn't want to be aut of it,' he said
petulantly. 'And I'm done!' And then--then he just looked discontented
and miserable and died--right off. Turned his head a little way over. As
if he was impatient at everything. Fainted--and fluttered out.

"For a time I kept trying to get him to drink....

"I couldn't believe he was dead....

"And suddenly it was all different. I began to cry. Like a baby. I kept
on with the water-bottle at his teeth long after I