“Yes... I made a fool of myself. The worst possible. How can I get back to Pozieres?”
“You could jump a lorry with luck.”
“I must. It's serious if I don't get back in time. In any case, the loss of that horse—”
He thought deeply for a moment, and I could see that his head was aching to the beat of sledge-hammers.
“Can I wash anywhere?”
I pointed to a jug and basin, and he said, “Thanks, enormously.”
He washed hurriedly, and then stared down with a shamed look at his muddy uniform, all creased and bedraggled. After that he asked if he could get out downstairs, and I told him the door was unlocked.
He hesitated for a moment before leaving my room.
“I am sorry to have given you all this trouble. It was very decent of you. Many thanks.”
The boy was a gentleman when sober. I wonder if he died at Pozieres, or farther on by the Butte de Warlencourt... A week later I saw an advertisement in an Amiens paper: “Horse found. Brown, with white sock on right foreleg. Apply—”