omrade-in-arms, and was led away, deeply grateful, to the guard-room.
Wee Peter, who in the course of last night's operations had stumbled
into an old trench half-filled with ice-cold water, and whose
temperature to-day, had he known it, was a hundred and two, paraded
with his company at the appointed time. The company, he reflected,
would get a bad name if too many men reported sick at once.

Next day he was absent from parade. He was "for Cambridge" at last.

Before he died, he sent for the officer who had befriended him, and
supplemented, or rather corrected, some of the information contained
in his attestation paper.

He lived in Dumbarton, not Renfrewshire. He was just sixteen. He was
not--this confession cost him a great effort--a full-blown "holder-on"
at all; only an apprentice. His father was "weel kent" in the town
of Dumbarton, being a chief engineer, employed by a great firm of
shipbuilders to extend new machinery on trial trips.

Needless to say, he made a great fight. But though his heart was
big enough, his body was too frail. As they say on the sea, he was
over-engined for his beam.

And so, three days later, the simple soul of Twenty-seven fifty-four
Carmichael, "A" Company, was transferred, on promotion, to another
company--the great Company of Happy Warriors who walk the Elysian
Fields.

III

"_Firing parrty, one round blank_--_load_!"

There is a rattle of bolts, and a dozen barrels are pointed
heavenwards. The company stands rigid, except the buglers, who are
beginning to finger their instruments.

"_Fire!_"

There is a crackling volley, and the pipes break into a brief, sobbing
wail. Wayfarers upon the road below look up curiously. One or two
young females with perambulators come hurrying across the grass,
exhorting apathetic babies to sit up and admire the pretty funeral.

Twice more the rifles ring out. The pipes cease their wailing, and
there is an expectant silence.

The drum-major crooks his little finger, and eight bugles come to the
"ready." Then "Last Post," the requiem of every soldier of the King,
swells out, sweet and true.

The echoes lose themselves among the dripping pines. The chaplain
closes his book, takes off his spectacles, and departs.

Old Carmichael permits himself one brief look into his son's grave,
resumes his crape-bound tall hat, and turns heavily away. He finds
Captain Blaikie's hand waiting for him. He grips it, and says--

"Weel, the laddie has ha