ghly thrown over by way of pall.
It is brought towards the incomplete grave, and followed by HOPE,
GRAHAM, ANDERSON, COLBORNE, HARDINGE, and several aides-de-camp,
a chaplain preceding.]

FIRST SOLDIER

They are here, almost as quickly as ourselves.
There is no time to dig much deeper now:
Level a bottom just as far's we've got.
He'll couch as calmly in this scrabbled hole
As in a royal vault!

SECOND SOLDIER

Would it had been a foot deeper, here among foreigners, with strange
manures manufactured out of no one knows what! Surely we can give
him another six inches?

FIRST SOLDIER

There is no time. Just make the bottom true.

[The meagre procession approaches the spot, and waits while the
half-dug grave is roughly finished by the men of the Ninth.
They step out of it, and another of them holds a lantern to the
chaplain's book. The winter day slowly dawns.]

CHAPLAIN

"Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is
full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he
fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay."

[A gun is fired from the French battery not far off; then another.
The ships in the harbour take in their riding lights.]

COLBORNE [in a low voice]

I knew that dawn would see them open fire.

HOPE

We must perforce make swift use of out time.
Would we had closed our too sad office sooner!

[As the body is lowered another discharge echoes. They glance
gloomily at the heights where the French are ranged, and then
into the grave.]

CHAPLAIN

"We therefore commit his body to the ground. Earth to earth, ashes
to ashes, dust to dust." [Another gun.]

[A spent ball falls not far off. They put out their lanterns.
Continued firing, some shot splashing into the harbour below
them.]

HOPE

In mercy to the living, who are thrust
Upon our care for their deliverance,
And run much hazard till they are embarked,
We must abridge these duties to the dead,
Who will not mind be they abridged or no.

HARDINGE

And could he mind, would be the man to bid it....

HOPE

We shall do well, then, curtly to conclude
These mutilated prayers--our hurried best!--
And what's left unsaid, feel.

CHAPLAIN [his words broken by the cannonade]

".... We give Thee hearty thanks for that it hath p