rl himself into places where "angels fear to tread." But after the
mad frenzy of the charge, with its accompaniment of shooting, stabbing,
killing and maiming, he would collapse, and it would be some hours
before he could regain his wonted composure.

The fire gradually slackened, our spirits began to revive, nature
commenced to reassert herself, and we made our way to the cookhouse. We
got our mess-tins filled with bread, cheese and jam, puddled our way to
the dugout and fell to with the relish of healthy, hungry, tired men who
had fasted several hours. We gathered in the dugout occupied by Billy
and myself. Feeling thoroughly rejuvenated, someone suggested a game to
pass the time until mail arrived, and the well-worn deck was produced.
Billy was sitting on my right hand and held cards that ought to have
cleaned up, but he seemed to have lost the first instinct of a poker
player, and I couldn't refrain from telling him he ought to confine
himself to checkers. He whispered to me, "Reg, I can't get that out of
my head." "What's that?" I asked.

"Fritz has my number; my time's nearly up and I know it." "Oh, hell!" I
exclaimed, with a good-natured impatience, and giving him a poke in the
ribs, "Forget it!"

The rest of the fellows chimed in with recollections of several fellows
who persisted in saying that their number was up, and who were now
pushing poppies, and the little Cockney murmured, "The poor beggars, and
if they had kept their mouths shut they'd 'ave been with us yet."

It is a strange philosophy, but it is prevalent up and down the line.

At that moment the mail arrived, and Billy forgot his premonition for
the time, for along with letters from his mother and sister, there was a
photograph from his sweetheart that he showed me with suppressed joy.

"I say, fellows, what do you think of that for good time," said one, "my
letters were both mailed on the 13th and this is only the 29th."

"That's a rum go," says the Cockney, "mine, too, was mailed on the
13th."

An examination of the mailing dates of our letters revealed the somewhat
startling coincidence that every single letter we got that night had
been mailed on the 13th. I mentally cursed the fateful number, but the
news from home overshadowed the thought, as it did everything else, and
I was careful to do everything I could to prevent its recurrence in the
conversation. And, besides, the British soldier's fatalism, that death
will come when it will co