But there was no rest for the weary.  We had lost at least a third of our strength, and we had to man the same long line.  We consolidated it as best we could, started to replace the wiring that had been destroyed, found touch with the division on our right, and established outposts.  Then, after a conference with my brigadiers, I went back to my headquarters, too tired to feel either satisfaction or anxiety.  In eight hours the French would be here.  The words made a kind of litany in my ears.

In the cowshed where Wake had lain, two figures awaited me.  The talc-enclosed candle revealed Hamilton and Amos, dirty beyond words, smoke-blackened, blood-stained, and intricately bandaged.  They stood stiffly to attention.

‘Sirr, the prisoner,’ said Hamilton.  ’I have to report that the prisoner is deid.’

I stared at them, for I had forgotten Ivery.  He seemed a creature of a world that had passed away.

‘Sirr, it was like this.  Ever sin’ this mornin’, the prisoner seemed to wake up.  Ye’ll mind that he was in a kind of dream all week.  But he got some new notion in his heid, and when the battle began he exheebited signs of restlessness.  Whiles he wad lie doun in the trench, and whiles he was wantin’ back to the dug-out.  Accordin’ to instructions I provided him wi’ a rifle, but he didna seem to ken how to handle it.  It was your orders, sirr, that he was to have means to defend hisself if the enemy cam on, so Amos gie’d him a trench knife.  But verra soon he looked as if he was ettlin’ to cut his throat, so I deprived him of it.’

Hamilton stopped for breath.  He spoke as if he were reciting a lesson, with no stops between the sentences.

’I jaloused, sirr, that he wadna last oot the day, and Amos here was of the same opinion.  The end came at twenty minutes past three—­I ken the time, for I had just compared my watch with Amos.  Ye’ll mind that the Gairmans were beginning a big attack.  We were in the front trench of what they ca’ the battle-zone, and Amos and me was keepin’ oor eyes on the enemy, who could be obsairved dribblin’ ower the open.  Just then the prisoner catches sight of the enemy and jumps up on the top.  Amos tried to hold him, but he kicked him in the face.  The next we kenned he was runnin’ verra fast towards the enemy, holdin’ his hands ower his heid and crying out loud in a foreign langwidge.’

‘It was German,’ said the scholarly Amos through his broken teeth.

‘It was Gairman,’ continued Hamilton.  ’It seemed as if he was appealin’ to the enemy to help him.  But they paid no attention, and he cam under the fire of their machine-guns.  We watched him spin round like a teetotum and kenned that he was bye with it.’

‘You are sure he was killed?’ I asked.

‘Yes, sirr.  When we counter-attacked we fund his body.’

* * * * *

There is a grave close by the farm of Gavrelle, and a wooden cross at its head bears the name of the Graf von Schwabing and the date of his death.  The Germans took Gavrelle a little later.  I am glad to think that they read that inscription.