P. C. Breagh answered shortly:
"Enough of one to know that there is no hope."
The horse, a fine, spirited animal, hoofed the ground impatiently. The captain said, patting the glossy, sweating neck:
"Very good. Will you kindly show me his name-tag?"
P. C. Breagh found the zinc label, bearing the moribund Hessian's name, regimental, battalion and company-number, and turned it face-upward on the discolored breast. The captain, leaning from the saddle, read, and mentally registered. His keen eyes, hedged with dusty fair lashes, narrowed against the blinding white sunshine and, somewhat bloodshot with heat and fatigue, had something like a smile in them; and for some reason, to the dusty young man who squatted on the ground by the dying, the smile was an offense. He scowled, and the officer, noting this, asked curiously:
"Were you acquainted with that one, then?"
He indicated the body by an overhand thumb-gesture. Resenting the gesture for the same inexplicable reason, P. C. Breagh responded with a head-shake. The captain pursued, pulling the damp and blackened reins between his gloved fingers, stained with his own sweat and the horse's within the palms....
"I asked, because you seemed—how shall one put it?—sorry for him, you know!"
The dust-smeared, freckled face turned on the interlocutor angrily. The smouldering fire in the eyes leaped into sudden flame:
"I am, damned sorry for him! To come by his end like this—without firing a single shot!"