Again and again the Bowman's mace smashed and lashed out before him, and Tim thrust, and thrust yet again with his sword. He heard the deep-throated roar of the bowman's singing "The Song of the Bow."
What of the shaft?
The shaft was cut in England:
A long shaft, a strong shaft,
Barbed and trim and true;
So we'll drink all together
To the grey goose feather
And the land where the grey goose flew.
Suddenly a yell, horrible and fierce, uprose from the soldiers, and he heard the bowman's voice no more.
"They're on the run, by Gawd, they've got it right in the neck this journey," bellowed a soldier as the German infantry broke and tailed away. Then something took Tim in the chest, something wet and red, that went through him.
The man next to Tim saw the long bayonet stand out beyond his back, saw Tim sway, laughing, and snap the steel short as he fell upon it.
A body of kilted men suddenly swept from the right of the hard-pressed battalion, swept by in silence, and in silence swept the remaining Boches up one side of the ridge and down the other into eternity.
Two days later Colonel Arbuthnot inquired after the welfare of Private Tim Gamelyn at the field hospital.
"He was admitted suffering from sunstroke, and a terrible bayonet wound. He died early in the morning," said the doctor.
"Is it true that he saved the battalion by urging our fellows on at the critical moment?"
"Yes," said Colonel Arbuthnot, "but do you happen to know if he had an officer's sword with him by chance when he was carried in here? All my men speak of a 'sword of flame' with which he drove the Huns before him. Even hardened soldiers who have been through many campaigns have been babbling all sorts of nonsense of ghostly regiments of bowmen who helped to turn the German attack!"