The escorting battalion moved to its position, the muffled drums of the field music began to beat, and the column, leaving the deserted armory to its Sunday quiet, slowly took up the march towards the elm-shadowed churchyard where, beside two low, green mounds, an open grave lay waiting.
The chaplain, book in hand, took his place beside the heap of freshly turned mould, ready to begin the recital of the solemn service for the dead. “Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto Himself the soul of our brother here departed,” he read, slowly and distinctly, as the coffin was lowered gently to its resting place; “we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
The service ended, and the chaplain softly closed his book. Then came the commands for the firing, given in a tone strangely unlike that to which the men were accustomed. Three echoing volleys followed, telling those who chanced to hear that another soldier of the half-forgotten war had been laid at rest.
The blue-white smoke from the rifles, silvered here and there by shafts of sunlight, drifted lazily up through the branches of the overhanging elms: there was an interval of silence, finally broken by the mellow notes of a bugle thrilling out the bars of Taps, the soldier’s requiem; and then the escort broke into column and marched away, leaving the little knot of older men still standing in the shady churchyard.
Transcriber’s Note
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unpaired quotation marks were retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Redundant chapter titles have been deleted from this eBook.
Page [33]: “break-off” probably is a misprint for “breaking off”