Part 5 (2/2)

”My wife and Pat--you've never seen Pat, I think? We christened her Patricia, you know?”

It was the photograph of a laughing child, with an aureole of curls, aged, I should say, about two.

”Pat sent me this,” the Major said, producing a large woollen comforter.

She had sent it for Daddy to wear during the cold nights with the Field Ambulance. I handed back the photograph, and B---- studied it intently for some minutes before replacing it in his pocket-book. Suddenly he leaned forward in a rather shamefaced way. ”I say, old chap, write to my wife!”

”But, my dear fellow, I've never met her except once. She must have quite forgotten who I am.”

”I know. But write and tell her you saw me off, and that I was at the top of my form. Merry and bright, you know.”

We looked at each other for a moment; and I promised.

There was the loud hoot of a horn and a lurch of the couplings, as C---- sprang in. I grasped B----'s hand, and jumped on to the footboard of the moving train.

”Good-bye, old chap.”

”Good-bye, old man.”

B---- had gone to the front. I never saw him again.

Three weeks later I was sitting at _dejeuner_ in the Metropole, when a ragam.u.f.fin came in with the London papers, which had just arrived by the leave-boat. I took up the _Times_ and looked, as one always looks nowadays, at the obituary column. I looked again. In the same column, one succeeding the other, I read the following:

Killed in action on 8th inst., near Givenchy, Arthur Hamilton C---- of the ---- Guards, 3rd Battalion, only child of the late Arthur C.

and of Mrs. C. of the Red House, Little Twickenham, aged 19.

Behold! I take away the desire of thine eyes with a stroke.

Killed in action on the 8th inst., while dressing a wounded soldier under fire, Major Ronald B----, D.S.O., of the Royal Army Medical Corps, aged 42.

Greater love hath no man than this.

II

THE FRONT

VII

THE TWO RICHEBOURGS

We had business with the _maire_ of the commune of Richebourg St. Vaast.

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