"At dawn, he sent the only other officer then remaining unwounded to the safest part of the trench, saying that when it got too light to stay on top he himself would get into 'the first old crump hole.' He stayed up too long, and was shot through the heart by a German sniper.
"He was a general favourite and loved by his men. He had done more dangerous patrol work than any two other officers in the battalion, and the hotter the situation the cooler he got.
"The way he used to write his articles was very characteristic of the man. I have seen him lying flat on his face in a tiny dug-out no bigger or higher than the underneath of a small dinner-table, in the front line trench, dashing off the first half of one of his quaint articles to Punch. He would have to stop in the middle and crawl out on patrol up to the German wire, have a scrap out there with a Bosch patrol at a few yards' range, stay out for two or three hours, and crawl back, soaked to the skin and covered with mud, to finish his article in time for the post.
"His name had already gone in for distinction, and if he had lived he certainly would have had a decoration conferred for his work in this last show.
"As you probably know, his articles were awfully appreciated by every one out here, and in his quaintly witty way he caught perfectly the spirit 'at the Front.'"
ROYAL ACADEMY—SECOND DEPRESSIONS.
