Page:Lieutenant and Others (1915) by Sapper.djvu/132

 and howled for Brown. There was no answer, save only from the doctor’s orderly, and he it was who told me. Brown had started out when the rain came on, six or seven hours before, with my mackintosh, and, not returning, they had gone to look for him.

In a ditch they found him with the water dyed crimson, a few minutes before he died. It was just a stray shell that found its mark on the lad. I can see him in my mind stumping along the road, humming his song—and then, without warning, the sudden screech close on top of him, the pitiful, sagging knees, the glazing film of death, with none to aid him through as he had helped that other, for the road was little used.

Thank God! they found him before the end, but he only made one remark. “I couldn’t get no farther, Dick,” he muttered, “but the mack ain’t stained.”

I went up to see him in the brewery where they’d carried him, and I looked on his honest, ugly face for the last time. “The mack ain’t stained.” No, lad, it isn’t. May I, when I come to the last fence, be able to say the same.