"No matter," said Lanark to Jager. "We know that they were both dead, and past our worrying about. Put the other bodies in—our men at this end, the guerrillas at the other."
The order was carried out. Once again Lanark asked about a prayer-book. A lad by the name of Duckin said that he had owned one, but that it had been burned with the rest of his kit in the blue flame that destroyed the house.
"Then I'll have to do it from memory," decided Lanark.
He drew up the surviving ten men at the side of the trench. Jager took a position beside him, and, just behind the sergeant, Enid Mandifer stood.
Lanark self-consciously turned over his clutter of thoughts, searching for odds and ends of his youthful religious teachings. "'Man that is born of woman hath but short time to live, and is full of misery'," he managed to repeat. "'He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower'." As he said the words "cut down," he remembered his saber-stroke of the night before, and how he had shorn away a man's hand. That man, with his heavy black beard, lay in this trench before them, with the severed hand under him. Lanark was barely able to beat down a shudder. "'In the midst of life'," he went on, "'we are in death'."
There he was obliged to pause. Sergeant Jager, on inspiration, took one pace forward and threw into the trench a handful of gritty earth.
"'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust'," remembered Lanark. "'Unto Almighty God we commit these bodies'"—he was sure that that was a misquotation worthy of Jager himself, and made shift to finish with one more tag from his memory: "'... in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life'."
He faced toward the file of men. Four of them had been told to fall in under arms, and at his order they raised their carbines and fired a volley into the air. After that, the trench was filled in.
Jager then cleared his throat and began to give orders concerning horses, saddles and what possessions had been spared by the fire. Lanark walked aside, and found Enid Mandifer keeping pace with him.
"You are going back to your army?" she asked.