“We had orders to attack early one morning. Jim was awfully keen; he had everything ready, and he had been talking to the men until they were all as bucked up as they could be. You know, he was often pretty grave about his work, but I don’t think I ever saw him look so happy as he did that morning. He looked just like a kid. He told me he felt as if he were going out on a good horse at Billabong. We were looking over our revolvers, and he said, ‘That’s the only thing that feels wrong; it ought to be a stock whip!’
“We hadn’t much artillery support. Our guns were short of shells, as usual. But we took the first trench, and the next. Jim was just everywhere. He was always first; the men would have followed him down a precipice. He was laughing all the time.
“We didn’t get much time before they counter-attacked. They came on in waves—as if there were millions of them, and we had a pretty stiff fight in the trench. It was fairly well smashed about. I was pretty busy about fifty yards away, but I saw Jim up on a broken traverse, using his revolver just as calmly as if he were practising in camp, and cheering on the men. He gave me a ‘Coo-ee!’
“And then—oh, I don’t know how to tell you. Just as I was looking at him a shell burst near him: and when the smoke blew over there was nothing—traverse and trench and all, it was just wiped out. I couldn’t get near him—the Boches were pouring over in fresh masses, and we got the signal to retire—and I was the only one left to get the men back.
“He couldn’t have felt anything; that’s the only thing.
“I wish it had been me. I’m nobody’s dog, and he was just everything to you two—and the best friend a fellow ever had. It would have been so much more reasonable if it had been me. I just feel that I hate myself for being alive. I would have saved him for you if I could, Norah, “Wally.”
There were letters, too, from Jim’s Colonel, and from Major Hunt, and Garrett, and every other brother-officer whom Jim had sent to Homewood; and others that Norah and her father valued almost more highly—from men who had served under him. Letters that made him glow with pride—almost forgetting grief as they read them. It seemed so impossible to think that Jim would never come again.
“I can’t feel as though he were dead,” Norah said, looking up at her father. “I know I’ve got to get used to knowing he has gone away from us for always. But I like to think of him as having only changed work. Jim never could be idle in Heaven; he always used to say it seemed such a queer idea to sit all day in a white robe and play a harp. Jim’s Heaven would have to be a very busy one, and I know he’s gone there, Dad.”
David Linton got up and went to the bookcase. He came back with Westward Ho! in his hand.