Brownsmith's Boy: A Romance in a Garden - George Manville Fenn

By the way, I did not tell you the name of the sergeant who ushered Philip Dalton into my shelter that night. His name was John Hampton, as fine a soldier as ever stepped. He joined the artillery when I got my commission. Poor Shock, for I knew him better by that name; he followed me with the fidelity of a dog; he always contrived something hot for me when we were almost starving, and any day he would have gone without that I might eat. And I believe that he would have fought for me to the death.

Poor Shock! The night when I was told that he could not live, after being struck down by a piece of shell, I knelt by him in the mud and held his hand. He just looked up in my face and said softly:

“Remember being shut up in the sand-pit, sir, and how you prayed? If you wouldn’t mind, sir—once again?”

I bent down lower and lower, and at last—soldier—hardened by horrors—grown stern by the life I led—I felt as if I had lost in that rough, true man the best of friends, and I cried over him like a child!

The End.