that he was speaking of me, I yet felt no glow at
this rough tribute, for I was worried at what I saw in the open. In
the fog of smoke I descried a figure that must be Doe's. He was
still out on the top, his party straggling and bewildered. It
perplexed me. Why was he not under cover in the crater of the mine?
Had all my blood-letting work only occupied the time it took him to
run from his trench to the lips of the crater?

Seeing his danger, I rushed along my company, shouting: "Curse you!
Double the rapidity of that fire. Do you want all the bombers
killed?" till I reached our extreme left, where we had been in touch
with Doe. Jumping up again, I watched his movements. I saw him
running well in front of his bombers, who were now going forward, as
if to a definite object. "Good--good--good! He'll get there." The
words were mine, but they sounded like someone else's. Then, almost
before the event which provoked it, I heard my own low groan.

Doe stopped, and staggered slightly backwards. His cap fell off, and
the wind blew his hair about, as it used to do on the cricket-field
at school. He recovered an upright position; he smiled very
clearly--then folded up, and collapsed.

I saw his party retire rapidly, but in orderly fashion, under the
command of their sergeant. Beyond them B Company, whose right flank
had been left hanging in the air by the withdrawal of the bombers,
began to execute a similar movement.

"Tain't the bombers' fault, sir," exclaimed my sergeant-major. "The
mine failed to produce a crater. They'd nowt to occupy."

Sick with misery and indecision, I was realising that I must retire
my company, its left flank being exposed--I was taking a last look
at the huddled form that had been my friend, when I saw him rise and
rush forward. Excitedly I cried: "Fire! Fire! Keep up that covering
fire! Be ready to advance at any moment." Ha, there were no tactics
about the position in front of Fusilier Bluff that minute. Doe was
tumbling forward alone. A company, firing furiously to keep down the
heads of the Turks, was "in the air"--and ready to advance.

"Message to retire at once, sir," reported my sergeant-major.

Look! Doe had something in his hand. He hurled it. A distant thud
and a small report merged at once into a great explosion, which
reverberated about the Bluff. Doe laughed shrilly. He fell. But it
could only have been the shock which knocked him over, for he was on
his feet again, and staggering