* * * * * *

Thus it ended, the play of which John Brinton's disappearance formed
the prologue. But before the curtain rang down on the epilogue the
German told them one or two little things: that John Brinton was alive
and well; that the existence of Ginger Stretton, to whom he had alluded
so glibly, had only become known to him from a letter in Brinton's
coat; that the peculiarities of pimple-faced Charlie had been forced on
him by his guide before they met the Sapper.

"In fact," as the Adjutant remarked, "the fellow was almost too good a
sportsman to----" But that's the epilogue.

A file of men; a watery sun just starting its day's work; a raw, chilly
morning. In front--a man: a man with a white disc of paper pinned over
the heart.

A word of command; a pushing forward of safety catches; a volley; a
finish.

V

MY LADY OF THE JASMINE

The Kid staggered wearily along the road through the blinding rain.
Dodging between the endless streams of traffic, which moved slowly in
both directions, now stopping for ten minutes, now jolting forward
again for a couple of hundred yards, he walked on towards where he
thought his battalion was. The last Staff officer he had seen had told
him that, as far as he knew, they had pulled out to rest in some
dug-outs about four miles farther on--dug-outs which had only recently
been taken from the Germans. To start with he had got on to a lorry,
but when darkness fell, and the total progression had been one mile, he
decided to walk and save time. Occasionally the lights of a car shone
in his face, as its infuriated occupant broke every rule of the Somme
roads by double banking; that is, trying to pass the vehicles in front.
But at last the traffic wore thinner as the road approached the front
line, and an hour and a half after he had left the lorry, it stopped
altogether, save for pack-mules and squelching men. The rain still
sogged down, and--ye gods! the Kid was tired. Away into the night
there stretched a path of slippery duck-boards, threading its way
between shell holes half filled with water. Men loomed up out of the
darkness and went past him, slipping and sliding, cursing below their
breath. A shower of sparks shot up into the air from a dug-out on his
right, and a great lobbing flare away in the distance lit up the scene
for a second or two with a ghostly radiance. It showed the Kid the
only other near occupant of the reclaimed