s
death drew nearer the boy struggled more painfully to live, that he
might know what was happening on the battlefield. He would have the
telegrams read to him night and morning. And he would lie brooding
over them for long afterwards. The Rector came to see him, and
Desmond accepted gratefully his readings and his prayers. But they
were scarcely done before he would turn to Elizabeth, and his eager
feverish look would send her to the telephone to ask Arthur
Chicksands at the War Office if Haig's mid-day telegram was in--or
any fresh news.

On the 20th of March, Chicksands, who had been obliged to go back to
his work, came down again for the night. Desmond lay waiting for
him, and Arthur saw at once that death was much nearer. But the boy
had himself insisted on strychnine and morphia before the visit, and
talked a great deal.

The military news, however, that Chicksands brought him disappointed
him greatly.

'Not _yet_?'--he said miserably--'_not yet_?'--breathing his life
into the words, when Chicksands read him a letter from a staff
officer in the Intelligence Department describing the enormous
German preparations for the offensive, but expressing the view--'It
may be some days more before they risk it!'

'I shall be gone before they begin!' he said, and lay sombre and
frowning on his pillows, till Chicksands had beguiled him by some
letters from men in Desmond's own division which he had taken
special trouble to collect for him.

And when the boy's mood and look were calmer, Arthur bent over him
and gave him, with a voice that must shake, the news of his Military
Cross--for 'brilliant leadership and conspicuous courage' in the
bit of 'observation work' that had cost him his life.

Desmond listened with utter incredulity and astonishment.

'It's not me!'--he protested faintly--'it's a mistake!'

Chicksands produced the General's letter--the Cross itself. Desmond
looked at it with unwilling eyes.

'I call it silly--perfectly silly! Why, there were fellows that
deserved it ten times more than I did!'

And he asked that it should be put away, and did not speak of it
again.

In all his talk with him that night, the elder officer was
tragically struck by the boy's growth in intelligence. Just as death
was claiming it, the young mind had broadened and deepened--had
become the mind of a man. And in the vigil which he kept during part
of that night with Martin, the able young surgeon who had brought
Desmond