etween two patrols that had met in the dark. The firing
stopped, and Durwent's eyes, staring into the blackness, saw two men
crouching low and dragging something after them. He challenged, to
find that it was the patrol returning, and that the one they were
bringing back was the officer, killed.

The trench was so narrow that they could not carry him back, and they
left the body lying on the parapet until a stretcher could be fetched.

Dulled as he had become to terrible sights, the horror of that silent,
grotesque figure began to freeze Dick Durwent's blood. A few minutes
before it had been a thing of life. It had loved and hated and
laughed; its veins had coursed with the warm blood of youth; and there
it sprawled, a ghastly jumble of arms and legs--motionless, silent,
_dead_. He tried to keep his eyes turned away, but it haunted him.
When he stared straight ahead into the dark it beckoned to him--he
could see the fingers twitching! And not till he crept near could he
be satisfied that, after all, it had not moved.

'Sherwood!' He heard a quivering voice to his right. It was the
nearest sentry, an eighteen-year-old boy, who had called him by the
name given him by Austin Selwyn, the name under which he had enlisted.

'What's the matter?' called Durwent.

Without his rifle, the little chap stumbled towards him, and, dark as
it was, Dick could see that his face was livid and his eyes were wide
with terror.

'Sherwood,' whimpered the boy, 'I can't stand it--I've lost my
nerve. . . . That thing there--there. . . . It moves. It's dead, and
it moves. . . . Look, it's grinning at me now! I'm going back. I
can't stay here--I can't.'

'Steady, steady,' said Durwent, gripping the boy by the shoulder and
shaking him roughly. 'Pull yourself together. Don't be a kid. You've
seen far worse than this and never turned a hair.'

'I can't help it,' whined the boy. 'There's dead men walking out there
all over. Can't you see them? They whisper in the dark--I can hear
them all the time. I'm going back.'

'You can't, you little idiot. They'll shoot you.'

'I don't care. Let them shoot.'

'Where's your rifle? Get back to your post. If you're caught like
this, there'll be a firing-party at daybreak for you.'

'I don't care,' cried the lad hysterically. 'They can't keep me here.
I'm going'----

'Here'---- Throwing the young fellow against the parapet and holding
him there by leaning heavily against hi