They had
remained there for forty-eight hours--unrelieved--listening and
telephoning. Then having given all necessary information to the
artillery Headquarters which had sent them out, they started on the
return journey. But they were seen and fired on. Desmond might have
escaped but for his determined endeavours to bring in the Sergeant,
who was the first of them to fall. A German sniper hidden in a
fragment of ruin caught the boy just outside the British line; he
fell actually upon the trench.
Desmond had been the leader all through, said Pamela; his Colonel
said he was 'the pluckiest, dearest fellow'--he failed 'in nothing
you ever asked him for.'
Just such a story as comes home, night after night, and week after
week, from the fighting line! Nothing remarkable in it, except,
perhaps, the personal quality of the boy who had sacrificed his
life. Arthur Chicksands, with three years of the war behind him,
felt that he knew it by heart--could have repeated it, almost in his
sleep, and each time with a different name.
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