oked black as chimney sweeps. Bill was cut across the hand, Kore's
arm was bleeding.

"Where's Mervin?"

"He had just gone out," I said, "I was speaking to him, he went (p. 158)
with Lieut. ---- to Marie Redoubt."

I suddenly recollected that I should not have left my place outside,
so I went into my niche again. Had Mervin got clear, I wondered? The
courtyard was deserted, and it was rapidly growing darker, a drizzle
had begun, and the wet ran down my rifle.

"Any word of Mervin?" I called to Stoner when he came out from the
dug-out, and moved cautiously across the yard. There was a certain
unsteadiness in his gait, but he was regaining his nerve; he had
really been more surprised than hurt. He disappeared without answering
my question, probably he had not heard me.

"Stretcher-bearers at the double."

The cry, that call of broken life which I have so often heard,
faltered across the yard. From somewhere two men rushed out carrying a
stretcher, and hurried off in the direction taken by Stoner. Who had
been struck? Somebody had been wounded, maybe killed! Was it Mervin?

Stoner came round the corner, a sad look in his brown eyes.

"Mervin's copped it," he said, "in the head. It must have been (p. 159)
that shell that done it; a splinter, perhaps."

"Where is he?"

"He's gone away on the stretcher unconscious. The officer has been
wounded as well in the leg, the neck, and the face."

"Badly?"

"No, he's able to speak."

Fifteen minutes later I saw Mervin again. He was lying on the
stretcher and the bearers were just going off to the dressing station
with it. He was breathing heavily, round his head was a white bandage,
and his hands stretched out stiffly by his sides. He was borne into
the trench and carried round the first traverse. I never saw him
again; he died two days later without regaining consciousness.

On the following day two more men went: one got hit by a concussion
shell that ripped his stomach open, another, who was on sentry-go got
messed up in a bomb explosion that blew half of his side away. The
charm of the courtyard, with the flower-beds and floral designs, died
away; we were now pleased to keep indoors and allow the chairs outside
to stand idle. All day long the enemy shelled us, most of the shells
dropped outside and played havoc with the church; but the figure (p. 160)
on the crucifix still remained, a symbol of something great and
tragical, overlooking the area of destru