he stood quivering,
with his hands pressed to his face, till the cheering had died out into
silence.

"Let's pray, Nollie!" he whispered. "O God, Who in Thy great mercy hath
delivered us from peril, take into Thy keeping the souls of these our
enemies, consumed by Thy wrath before our eyes; give us the power to
pity them--men like ourselves."

But even while he prayed he could see Noel's face flame-white in the
darkness; and, as that glow in the sky faded out, he felt once more the
thrill of triumph.

They went down to tell the maids, and for some time after sat up
together, talking over what they had seen, eating biscuits and drinking
milk, which they warmed on an etna. It was nearly two o'clock before
they went to bed. Pierson fell asleep at once, and never turned till
awakened at half-past six by his alarum. He had Holy Communion to
administer at eight, and he hurried to get early to his church and
see that nothing untoward had happened to it. There it stood in the
sunlight; tall, grey, quiet, unharmed, with bell gently ringing.

3

And at that hour Cyril Morland, under the parapet of his trench,
tightening his belt, was looking at his wrist-watch for the hundredth
time, calculating exactly where he meant to put foot and hand for the
going over: 'I absolutely mustn't let those chaps get in front of me,'
he thought. So many yards before the first line of trenches, so many
yards to the second line, and there stop. So his rehearsals had gone;
it was the performance now! Another minute before the terrific racket of
the drum-fire should become the curtain-fire, which would advance before
them. He ran his eye down the trench. The man next him was licking his
two first fingers, as if he might be going to bowl at cricket. Further
down, a man was feeling his puttees. A voice said: "Wot price the
orchestra nah!" He saw teeth gleam in faces burnt almost black. Then he
looked up; the sky was blue beyond the brownish film of dust raised by
the striking shells. Noel! Noel! Noel!... He dug his fingers deep
into the left side of his tunic till he could feel the outline of her
photograph between his dispatch-case and his heart. His heart fluttered
just as it used when he was stretched out with hand touching the ground,
before the start of the "hundred yards" at school. Out of the corner of
his eye he caught the flash of a man's "briquet" lighting a cigarette.
All right for those chaps, but not for him; he wanted all his
bre