Training it on the Germans, he shouted for joy as their front rank went down.
Traversing the gun back and forth along the mass of Germans, he saw them break and run back to the cover of their trench, leaving their dead and wounded behind. He had saved his Company, he, Lloyd, the coward, had "done his bit." Releasing the thumb piece, he looked at the watch on his wrist. He was still alive, and the hands pointed to "3:38," the time set for his death by the court.
"Ping!" -- a bullet sang through the air, and Lloyd fell forward across the gun. A thin trickle of blood ran down his face from a little, black round hole in his forehead.
The sentence of the court had been "duly carried out."
The Captain slowly raised the limp form drooping over the gun, and, wiping the blood from the white face, recognized it as Lloyd, the coward of "B" Company. Reverently covering the face with his handkerchief, he turned to his "non-coms," and in a voice husky with emotion, addressed them:
"Boys, it's Lloyd the deserter. He has redeemed himself, died the death of a hero. Died that his mates might live."
That afternoon, a solemn procession wended its way toward the cemetery. In the front a stretcher was carried by two Sergeants. Across the stretcher the Union Jack was carefully spread. Behind the stretcher came a Captain and forty-three men, all that were left of "D" Company.
Arriving at the cemetery, they halted in front of an open grave. All about them, wooden crosses were broken and trampled into the ground.
A grizzled old Sergeant, noting this destruction, muttered under his breath: "Curse the cowardly blighter who wrecked those crosses! If I could only get these two hands around his neck, his trip West would be a short one."
The corpse on the stretcher seemed to move, or it might have been the wind blowing the folds of the Union Jack.