VII
WE found our horses waiting for us with the grooms and horse-holders in a trench about fifty yards off the road. They had had to take cover there on account of enemy shelling attracted by an anti-aircraft battery. The anti-aircraft battery being mounted on motor-lorries, had made a swift get-away the moment the retaliation, which they had called down, had started. Our boys couldn’t get away; they had received explicit orders to wait for me and my party with their horses at one specific point on the Concrete Road. Three horses had been slightly wounded and one of the men had been killed. A splinter of shell had cut his throat as completely as if a knife had been drawn across it.
Kneeling beside the body, I drew back the saddle-blanket which had been thrown over if and scanned the face with my flash-lamp. My groom touched me on the shoulder, “You won’t recognise him, sir; he’s a remount—only came to the Front for the first time yesterday evening.”
It was a young face, with scarcely any beard on it. Nineteen, at most. The eyes were blue, and filmed, and wide. They had a sudden expression of surprise and protest. Death doesn’t often disturb me now-a-days, but I couldn’t tear that scarlet mark across the throat.—One day at the wagon-lines being chaffed for having come into the army late—the next night dead! Poor laddie! I don’t know who you are or where you came from. If I could have prevented it, things shouldn’t have happened this way. They ought to have given you a better run for your money. I’m sorry.
The horses are snorting and jumping back against the reins, so I switch off my flashlight and cover up the face.
“Have any arrangements been made?” I ask.
They tell me “None”—the accident only happened within the last half-hour.
“Then one of you will have to mount it in front of you. Hand it over to the Captain of the relieving battery. He’ll have to see to its burial: we march within the next three hours.... Where’s the Major?”
I learn that he’s still at the guns, so I tell my groom to lead on down the road to the battery-position and I order the rest of the party to get mounted. As I turn to take a short-cut through the rusty wire of old defenses and the water-logged craters of unrecorded fights, I glance back to catch the silhouettes of the horsemen as they ride towards the red lip of the horizon, with the drooping body hanging sack-like in front of the last rider’s saddle. An inconspicuous ending to one lad’s dreams of glory! He won’t be here for the counter-stroke. Letters from home will arrive full of anxiety and affection. They’ll have to be returned unread and unopened. The old, sad story! And yet, who knows! Perhaps he’s lucky.