tch with Amos. Ye'll mind that the
Gairmans were beginning a big attack. We were in the front trench of
what they ca' the battle-zone, and Amos and me was keepin' oor eyes on
the enemy, who could be obsairved dribblin' ower the open. Just then
the prisoner catches sight of the enemy and jumps up on the top. Amos
tried to hold him, but he kicked him in the face. The next we kenned he
was runnin' verra fast towards the enemy, holdin' his hands ower his
heid and crying out loud in a foreign langwidge.'

'It was German,' said the scholarly Amos through his broken teeth.

'It was Gairman,' continued Hamilton. 'It seemed as if he was appealin'
to the enemy to help him. But they paid no attention, and he cam under
the fire of their machine-guns. We watched him spin round like a
teetotum and kenned that he was bye with it.'

'You are sure he was killed?' I asked.

'Yes, sirr. When we counter-attacked we fund his body.'

* * * * *

There is a grave close by the farm of Gavrelle, and a wooden cross at
its head bears the name of the Graf von Schwabing and the date of his
death. The Germans took Gavrelle a little later. I am glad to think
that they read that inscription.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The Summons Comes for Mr Standfast

I slept for one and three-quarter hours that night, and when I awoke I
seemed to emerge from deeps of slumber which had lasted for days. That
happens sometimes after heavy fatigue and great mental strain. Even a
short sleep sets up a barrier between past and present which has to be
elaborately broken down before you can link on with what has happened
before. As my wits groped at the job some drops of rain splashed on my
face through the broken roof. That hurried me out-of-doors. It was just
after dawn and the sky was piled with thick clouds, while a wet wind
blew up from the southwest. The long-prayed-for break in the weather
seemed to have come at last. A deluge of rain was what I wanted,
something to soak the earth and turn the roads into water-courses and
clog the enemy transport, something above all to blind the enemy's eyes
... For I remembered what a preposterous bluff it all had been, and
what a piteous broken handful stood between the Germans and their goal.
If they knew, if they only knew, they would brush us aside like flies.

As I shaved I looked back on the events of yesterday as on something
that had happened long ago. I seemed to judge them impe