Burker rode in that blank file and drilled so, throughout—save that he would not dismount.
Once, as the troop rode in column of sections, I fell to the rear and, coming up behind, struck with all my might at that slightly nebulous figure, with its faint vagueness of outline and hint of transparency.
My heavy cutting-whip whistled—and touched nothing. I was as one who beats the air. Section Six must have thought me mad…. Twice again the dead man drilled with the living, and each time I described what happened to Major Jackson.
"It is a persistent hallucination," said he; "you must go on leave."
"I won't run from Burker, nor from a hallucination," I replied.
Then came the end.
At the next drill, twenty-one gentlemen were present and Number Twenty-one, the Sessions Judge of Duri, a Scot, kept staring with looks of amazement and alarm at Burker, who rode as Number Four on his flank, making an odd file into a skeleton section. I was certain that he saw Burker.
As the gentlemen "dismissed" after parade, the Judge rode up to me and, with a white face, demanded:—
"Who the devil was that rode with me as Number Twenty-four? It was—it was—like—Sergeant Burker."
"It was Sergeant Burker, Sir," said I.