out a word, carrying the unread sentence in his hand, Durwent
was marched back to the hut. Again the women cast curious glances, and
a little urchin in a cocked-hat stood at the salute as they passed.

When he was alone once more, Dick broke the seal of the envelope, and
without his face altering, except that the shadows grew darker beneath
his eyes, he read the finding of the court.

He was to be shot.

He read it twice. With a long, quivering intake of the breath, he tore
the thing slowly into a dozen pieces and threw them into a corner.

Walking to the end of the hut, he leaned against the ledge of a little
window, and looked out towards the horizon where the great blue of the
sky stooped to earth. There was the laughter of soldiers, and from an
adjoining meadow came the neighing of a restive horse. The sunlight
deepened, and from a hundred branches birds were trilling welcome to
the promise of another summer.

Two hours passed. The warmth of early afternoon was giving way to the
cool mood of twilight--but the solitary figure had not moved.

II.

Nine days had passed when a motor-lorry drew up on the road, and the
same sergeant ordered Dick Durwent to take his place outside the hut
with his escort. The prisoner asked as to his destination, and was
told that the sentence, having been confirmed, was to be promulgated
before his unit.

They had been travelling for half-an-hour when they reached a field in
which Durwent saw two companies of his battalion drawn up in the form
of a hollow square. Faint with shame, staggering under the hideous
cruelty of the whole thing, he was marched into the centre and ordered
to take a pace forward, while the commanding officer read the sentence
of court-martial to the men: that Private Sherwood, being found guilty
of drunkenness while on guard--it being further proved that he had
obtained unlawful possession of the liquor--was to be shot at dawn, and
that the sentence would be carried out the following morning.

Although his senses reeled with the shock and ignominy of it all, the
prisoner's bearing showed no sign of it. With his head erect, he
looked into the faces of the men whom he had lived and slept and fought
beside; men with whom he had shared privation and danger; men who had
been his comrades through it all. But as he searched their faces he
felt an overpowering loneliness. In the eyes of every one there was
horror; To be killed in battle--what was that?