“And what do you boys do?” asked the chaplain.  “Do you sing too?”

“Faith, I swore,” said one of the Munsters, “I used every name but a saint’s name.”  The speaker was a Catholic, and the chaplain was Church of England, or he might have been less candid.

“There was a mon in oor company,” said the red-headed one, feeling it was his turn again, “that killed seven Jerrmans—­he shot six and baynitted anither.  And he wur fair fou[19] afterwards.  He grat like a bairn.”

“Aye, mon,” said a ruddy man of the Yorks L.I., “ah knaw’d ah felt mysen dafflin[20] when ah saw me pal knocked over.  He comed fra oor toon, and he tellt me hissen the neet afore:  ‘Jock,’ ’e said, ’tha’ll write to me wife, woan’t tha?’ And ah said, ’Doan’t be a fule, Ben, tha’ll be all right.’  ‘Noa, Jock,’ he tellt me, ’ah knaw’d afore ah left heeam ah should be killt.  Ah saw a mouldiwarp[21] dead afore oor door; me wife fair dithered[22] when she saw’t.’”

The chaplain and myself looked puzzled.  “It’s a kind o’ sign among the fouk in our parts, sir,” he proceeded, enlightening our ignorance.  “And ’e asked me to take his brass for the wife.  But ah thowt nowt of it.  And we lost oor connectin’ files and were nobbut two platoons, and we got it somethin’ cruel; the shells were a-skirling[23] like peewits ower our heids.  And Ben were knocked over and ’e never said a ward.  And then ah got fair daft.”

There was silence for a moment.

“I found this,” suddenly interrupted a despatch-rider.  He was a fair-spoken youth, obviously of some education.  He explained, in reply to our interrogatories, that he was a despatch-rider attached to a Signal Company of the R.E.  He produced a cap, apparently from nowhere, by mere sleight of hand.  It was greasy, weather-stained, and in no respect different from a thousand such Army caps.  It bore the badge and superscription of the R.E.  We looked at it indifferently as he held it out with an eleemosynary gesture.

“A collection will now be taken,” said the Hoxton man with a grin.

But the despatch-rider did not laugh.  “I found this cap,” he said gravely, “on Monday, September 7th, in a house near La Ferte.  We stopped there for four hours while the artillery were in action.  We saw a broken motor bicycle outside a house to which the people pointed.  We went in.  We found one of our despatch-riders with an officer’s sword sticking in him.  Our section officer asked the people about it, and they told him that the despatch-rider arrived late one night, having lost his way and knocked at the door of the house.  There were German officers billeted there.  They let him in, and then they stuck him up against a wall and cut him up.  He had fifteen sabre-cuts,” he added quietly.

No one laughed any more.  We all crowded round to look at that tragic cap.  “The number looks like one—­nought—­seven—­something,” said the chaplain, adjusting his glasses, “but I can’t make out the rest.”  “Poor lad,” he added softly.  No one spoke.  But I saw a look in the eyes of the men around me that boded ill for the Hun when they should be reported fit for duty.