up the road to the band, who are waiting at the
head of the procession, and the pipes break into a lament. Corporals
step forward and lay four wreaths upon the coffin--one from each
company. Not a man in the battalion has failed to contribute his penny
to those wreaths; and pennies are not too common with us, especially
on a Thursday, which comes just before payday. The British private is
commonly reputed to spend all, or most of, his pocket-money upon beer.
But I can tell you this, that if you give him his choice between
buying himself a pint of beer and subscribing to a wreath, he will
most decidedly go thirsty.

The serio-comic charioteer gives his reins a twitch, the horses wake
up, and the gun-carriage begins to move slowly along the lane of
mourners. As the dead private passes on his way the walls of the
lane melt, and his comrades fall into their usual fours behind the
gun-carriage.

So we pass up the hill towards the military cemetery, with the pipes
wailing their hearts out, and the muffled drums marking the time of
our regulation slow step. Each foot seems to hang in the air before
the drums bid us put it down.

In the very rear of the procession you may see the company commander
and three subalterns. They give no orders, and exact no attention. To
employ a colloquialism, this is not their funeral.

Just behind the gun-carriage stalks a solitary figure in civilian
clothes--the unmistakable "blacks" of an Elder of the Kirk. At
first sight, you have a feeling that some one has strayed into the
procession who has no right there. But no one has a better. The sturdy
old man behind the coffin is named Adam Carmichael, and he is here,
having travelled south from Dumbarton by the night train, to attend
the funeral of his only son.

II

Peter Carmichael was one of the first to enlist in the regiment. There
was another Carmichael in the same company, so Peter at roll-call
was usually addressed by the sergeant as "Twenty-seven fufty-fower
Carmichael," 2754 being his regimental number. The army does not
encourage Christian names. When his attestation paper was filled up,
he gave his age as nineteen; his address, vaguely, as Renfrewshire;
and his trade, not without an air, as a "holder-on." To the mystified
Bobby Little he entered upon a lengthy explanation of the term in a
language composed almost entirely of vowels, from which that
officer gathered, dimly, that holding-on had something to do with
shipbuilding.