face, and he shuddered slightly: a bullet can do a lot of damage.
Then he climbed on the fire step and looked over the parapet. It was a
place where the spoils party had been particularly busy; and though the
Company Officer was full six foot, he could only just see over the top;
as a fire step it was useless to any one but a giant from a freak show.

"Hullo! what's happened?" A voice behind him made him turn round.

"That you, Dick? Poor little Jerry Dixon been shot through the
parapet--that's what's happened." He got down and stood at the bottom
of the trench beside the second-in-command. "The three top layers
there are only one bag thick." Once again his language became heated.

"Steady, old man," Dick Staunton puffed steadily at his pipe, and
looked at the body lying beside them. "Were you with him when he was
hit?"

"No. Came round visiting the sentries and found him lying there dead."

"Oh!" He switched on his torch and continued smoking in silence.
Suddenly he bent forward and peered closely at the shattered head.
"Give me a hand for a minute. I want to turn the boy over."

Faintly surprised, he did as he was bid.

In silence they turned the body over, and again there was silence while
Staunton carefully examined the spot where the bullet had entered.

"Strange," he muttered to himself after a few moments, "very strange.
Tell me, Joe"--his voice was normal again--"exactly how did you find
him? What position was he in?"

"He was half sitting on the fire step; with his head in the corner and
his legs sprawling in the bottom of the trench."

"Sitting? Then his face was towards you."

"Why, yes. Is there anything peculiar in the fact? He'd probably just
been having a look over the top, and as he turned away to get down he
was hit through the sandbags in the back of the neck. His head was a
bit forward as he was getting down, so the bullet passed through his
head and out of his forehead."

In silence they turned the boy over again and covered his face with a
pocket-handkerchief.

"You're too much of a blooming detective, you know, old man. Much
police work has made thee mad," laughed the Company Commander. "What
else can have happened?"

"I'm no detective, Joe." The other man smiled slightly. "But there
are one or two small points of detail which strike me, though I can
make nothing out of them, I admit. First--his height. He's six inches
shorter than you, and yet you could barely