“What are you doing when the show has started?”
“I follow you up,” I said, “and keep you in sight. If you want to send any runners back, you’ll find some of my signallers in this trench.”
Then we again fell to watching the quiet country with a kind of wonder, counting off the minutes and the seconds.
There were only two minutes left when the infantry-officer jerked my elbow excitedly, “Good God, look at that!”
“At what?”
“Get your glasses out, man, they’re better than mine. That thing over there, moving towards the apple-trees down the road.”
I picked up the object with my naked eye when he pointed. It was a mere speck, creeping very slowly. It might have been a man crawling, only it was hardly big enough. Our riflemen already had their sights trained on it and their angers on the triggers, awaiting the order to fire. I raised my glasses. What I saw was a child, with chubby legs, short skirts and long hair to the middle of his back like a girl’s. His face was streaky with crying, and he kept digging his knuckles into his eyes. Through the glasses he looked so near that I could have touched him by reaching out my hand. It was horrible to see him out there, where in little over a minute our own shells would be falling. Our little Bully Beef, going in search of his mother! There wasn’t one of us who wouldn’t have given up his life to restore him to her, and we were powerless to draw him back. The rifles were lowered as the word was whispered round; we watched his progress in fascinated suspense.
Suddenly, rising out of a ditch behind him, came another figure—Big Dan’s. Big Dan, who had promised to take care of him in his mother’s absence! He leapt up and ran towards the enemy lines down the ribbon of white road. He must have called to Bully Beef, for we saw the child turn and fling out his arms at recognising him. Dan picked him up, holding him tight against his breast, and stood there hesitating, waiting for the enemy to take their revenge. I could almost hear him singing defiantly, in his deep base voice,
Old soldiers never die,
They simply fade away.