“Fritz has my number; my time’s nearly up and I know it.”  “Oh, hell!” I exclaimed, with a good-natured impatience, and giving him a poke in the ribs, “Forget it!”

The rest of the fellows chimed in with recollections of several fellows who persisted in saying that their number was up, and who were now pushing poppies, and the little Cockney murmured, “The poor beggars, and if they had kept their mouths shut they’d ’ave been with us yet.”

It is a strange philosophy, but it is prevalent up and down the line.

At that moment the mail arrived, and Billy forgot his premonition for the time, for along with letters from his mother and sister, there was a photograph from his sweetheart that he showed me with suppressed joy.

“I say, fellows, what do you think of that for good time,” said one, “my letters were both mailed on the 13th and this is only the 29th.”

“That’s a rum go,” says the Cockney, “mine, too, was mailed on the 13th.”

An examination of the mailing dates of our letters revealed the somewhat startling coincidence that every single letter we got that night had been mailed on the 13th.  I mentally cursed the fateful number, but the news from home overshadowed the thought, as it did everything else, and I was careful to do everything I could to prevent its recurrence in the conversation.  And, besides, the British soldier’s fatalism, that death will come when it will come, prevented for long any gloom or oppressiveness in the atmosphere that might have been engendered by the time-old superstition.  It was only in the exceptional cases when a soldier got into his head the premonition that his number was up that his spirits took a drop.  I wish it were possible to convey in exact language the wonderful spirit of the men under circumstances and conditions endured by no soldiers in any other war since primeval man enforced his claims with his club.

Every man in the squad got letters and parcels that evening, and, all things considered, it was a happy bunch that left us to seek their bunks in their own dugouts.  Billy and I remained up awhile after the others had gone, chatting about the home folks and, particularly, about his sweetheart, for at every opportunity he would turn the talk in her direction; he was positive there was no other girl quite so sweet as Aileen, for that was her name, and there was nothing for me to do but affirm everything he said.

“Reg, I want you to promise me one thing,” said Billy, after we had been talking for an hour or more.

“What is it, Billy?  You know I’ll do it, old scout, if I can.”

“Yes, I know you will.  Well, it is this:  I’ve told you how I came to correspond with Aileen, and, altho’ I’ve never seen her yet, I really think she is one real girl.  But here’s the rub,” he continued; “I don’t really love the girl; I’m not such an idiot as to fall in love with a girl I have never seen; and you know lots of these photos are fifty per cent camouflage, ain’t they?”