'It's not me!'—he protested faintly—'it's a mistake!'
Chicksands produced the General's letter—the Cross itself. Desmond looked at it with unwilling eyes.
'I call it silly—perfectly silly! Why, there were fellows that deserved it ten times more than I did!'
And he asked that it should be put away, and did not speak of it again.
In all his talk with him that night, the elder officer was tragically struck by the boy's growth in intelligence. Just as death was claiming it, the young mind had broadened and deepened—had become the mind of a man. And in the vigil which he kept during part of that night with Martin, the able young surgeon who had brought Desmond home, and was spending his own hard-earned leave in easing the boy's death, Chicksands found that Martin's impression was the same as his own.
'It's wonderful how he's grown and thought since he's been out there. But do we ever consider—do we ever realize—enough!—what a marvellous thing it is that young men—boys—like Desmond—should be able to live, day after day, face to face with death—consciously and voluntarily—and get quite used to it? Which of us before the war had ever been in real physical danger—danger of violent death?—and that not for a few minutes—but for days, hours, weeks? It seems to make men over again—to create a new type—by the hundred thousand. And to some men it is an extraordinary intoxication—this conscious and deliberate acceptance—defiance!—of death—for a cause—for their country. It sets them free from themselves. It matures them, all in a moment—as though the bud and the flower came together. Oh, of course, there are those it brutalizes—and there are those it stuns. But Desmond was one of the chosen.'
The night passed. The Squire came in after midnight, and took his place by the bed.
Desmond was then restless and suffering, and the nurse in charge whispered to the Squire that the pulse was growing weaker. But the boy opened his eyes on his father, and tried to smile. The Squire sat bowed and bent beside him, and nurses and doctors withdrew from them a little—out of sight and hearing.
'Desmond!' said the Squire in a low voice.
'Yes.'