“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 home.

“Gawd!” screamed the sergeant-major.  “He’s bombed the gun and exploded the shell-dump.  Finish whizz-bang!” And he bellowed with triumphant laughter.

“I knew he would,” cried I.  “I knew he would.  This way, Doe!”

He was going blindly to his right.

“Message from C.O. to retire at once, sir.”

“This way, Doe!” I roared at him, laughing, for I thought he was well and unhurt.

But no.  He pitched, rolled over, and lay still.

I gasped.  What was I to do?  Ordered to retire, I wanted to jump out and fetch him in.  In those few seconds of indecision, I saw a figure crash forward, pick up Doe’s body, and run back.

“The padre!  The padre!” exclaimed the sergeant-major.

“No?  Was it?”

“Gawd, yes!  The gor-blimey parson!”

“Pass the word to retire,” I commanded.  “Hang it!  We seem to have done the job we set out to do.”

Sec.8

Covered with blood and dust, my jacket torn, I came half an hour later upon Monty, where he was sitting wearily upon a mound.  I had but one question to ask him.

“Is he dead?”

“No.  Hit in the shoulder the first time.  Then, after he got up and bombed the gun, hit four times in the waist.”

“Will he die?”

“Of course.”

I walked away, as a man does from one who has cruelly hurt him.

“O Christ!” I said, just blasphemously, for in that moment of tearless agony all my moral values collapsed.  “O Christ!  Damn beauty!  Damn everything!” Then there came a disorder of the mind, in which I could only repeat to myself:  “The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear.  The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear.  The Germans—­Oh, drop it, for God’s sake, drop it!”

A night and a morning passed:  and the next afternoon I was sitting on the Bluff, glumly watching a destroyer flash and smoke, as she hurled shells over my head to Achi Baba.  An officer came up, and with grim meaning handed me the typed copy of an official telegram.