. Then something took Tim in the chest, something wet and red, that
went through him.

The man next to Tim saw the long bayonet stand out beyond his back, saw
Tim sway, laughing, and snap the steel short as he fell upon it.

A body of kilted men suddenly swept from the right of the hard-pressed
battalion, swept by in silence, and in silence swept the remaining
Boches up one side of the ridge and down the other into eternity.

Two days later Colonel Arbuthnot inquired after the welfare of Private
Tim Gamelyn at the field hospital.

"He was admitted suffering from sunstroke, and a terrible bayonet wound.
He died early in the morning," said the doctor.

"Is it true that he saved the battalion by urging our fellows on at the
critical moment?"

"Yes," said Colonel Arbuthnot, "but do you happen to know if he had an
officer's sword with him by chance when he was carried in here? All my
men speak of a 'sword of flame' with which he drove the Huns before him.
Even hardened soldiers who have been through many campaigns have been
babbling all sorts of nonsense of ghostly regiments of bowmen who helped
to turn the German attack!"

The doctor walked over to a shelf, and, taking down a rusty old sword,
placed it on the table.

"Perhaps that is what you refer to, Colonel," he said. "Where the fellow
picked it up is a mystery to me. It must be some hundreds of years
old."

Colonel Arbuthnot took it in his hands and read this inscription on the
blade:

NIGEL DE GAMELYN
... ADSUM ...

III

THE MILLS OF GOD

They were putting little Boudru to bed--the R.H.A. and the Corps of
Royal Engineers and Stansfield, the big fat Infantry Sergeant. His
little sister, already tucked up in bed, was nearly asleep. Boudru had
been allowed to stay up till Sergeant Stansfield had come in from duty.
The special privilege had been accorded to the little French boy on
this, the last night that the British troops were to spend in the
village. Boudru's home was in a portion of our line in which the defence
trenches were of the semi-detached type--they did not join up with the
other part of the line, and at times the place was distinctly unhealthy.
Sometimes it was in the hands of the Huns, sometimes the British rushed
it, and held on for a few weeks; there had been times when it had been
occupied by both, at other times it was written on the squared official
maps as no man's land. It was a spot in which there was always a fee