"Good-bye, dear girl. Don't think from the tone of my letter that I have forgotten how to smile (this is where real humor is found, for humor was always a twin to tragedy). But I am forgetting how to scoff. I suppose, though, that I haven't changed beyond recognition, for I believe behind my back I am called 'The Duke.'
"Like my comrades, I have written to a loved one at home.
"I trust, Vera, that it is au revoir.
"Dennis.
"D. O. Montague, Pte. No. 67,895,
"Brindle's Battalion, C.E.F."
IX
"Four minutes!" A subaltern, who had reached the Brindle's Battalion only the night before, stood with his back to the parapet, his wrist turned so that he could study the face of his watch. Half-a-dozen rifles spat at the German trench opposite. The attack was to be a surprise, without preliminary artillery fire.
"Three minutes!" There was a slight catch in the lieutenant's voice as he watched the ominous course of the hand of his watch ticking off the seconds. Dennis Montague turned to look at him, wondering where he had seen him before, and idly conjecturing how he had earned that little splash of color on his breast.
A signaler looked up from his phone. "O.C. wants to know if everything is ready, sir."
"Two minutes! Has every man his gas-helmet, water-bottle, iron ration? Right. Tell the O.C. everything's O.K."