"Why, because we'll leave this old place together."
After he said this I must have fallen from sheer weariness into a half-sleep. The next thing I remember was Monty's saying: "Look alive, Rupert! We're moving now." Glancing round, I saw that my company was the last left on the beach. I marshalled the men—twenty-eight of them—on to the lighter.
"Now, get aboard, Rupert," said Monty.
"You first," corrected I. "I'm going to be last off to-night."
"As your senior officer, I order you to go first."
"As the only combatant officer on the beach," I retorted, "I'm O.C. Troops. You're simply attached to me for rations and discipline. Kindly embark."
Monty muttered something about "upstart impudence," and obeyed the O.C. Troops, who thereupon boarded the rocking lighter, and exchanged with one step the fatal Peninsula for the safety of the seas.
On the Redbreast we leaned upon the rail, looking back. The boat began to steam away, and Monty, knowing with whom the thoughts of both of us lay, said quietly:
"'Tell England—' You must write a book and tell 'em, Rupert, about the dead schoolboys of your generation—
'Tell England, ye who pass this monument,
We died for her, and here we rest content.'"