Page:Lieutenant and Others (1915) by Sapper.djvu/179

 just as they were yesterday, and there’s that Maxim going again. But you’ve lost your master, old horse; and I’ve lost a friend: and the girl? Not a bad bag, for half an ounce of lead!

They’ve left him up there, with a cross over his shallow grave, and his name scrawled on it with an indelible pencil. One can’t get up there in the daylight—it’s not safe. I’d like to have gone to-night to see if it was all right: but there’s a job of work to be done elsewhere. So I’ll have to lie to her. I’m writing her this afternoon. I can’t let her open the paper one morning, and suddenly see his name standing out in letters of fire from all the others. Just a pawn in the game—another officer killed—a bare, hard fact, brutal, uncompromising. No more letters to look forward to: no more socks and smokes to send out. True, the socks never fitted, but she didn’t know. No: I can’t let her find it out that way. I must write: though what on earth can I say to her? I never could write a letter like that. If you’re going to have your head smashed with a sledgehammer, one can’t do much