What I said by way of sympathy and consolation is neither here nor there.  I spoke sincerely from my heart, for I felt overwhelmed by the tragedy of it all.  He stretched out his hand and grasped mine.

“I knew you wouldn’t fail me.  Your sort never does.  You understand now why I wanted you to come?—­To prepare the old mother for the shock.  You’ve seen for yourself that I’m sound of wind and limb—­ as fit as a fiddle.  You can make it quite clear to her that I’m not going to die yet awhile.  And you can let her down easy on the real matter.  Tell her I’m as merry as possible and looking forward to going about Wellingsford with a dog and string.”

“You’re a brave chap, Boyce,” I said.

He laughed again.  “You’re anticipating.  Do you remember what I said when you asked me what I should do if I won all the pots I set my heart on and came through alive?  I said I should begin to try to be a brave man.  God!  It’s a tough proposition.  But it’s something to live for, anyway.”

I asked him how it happened.

“I got sick,” he replied, “of bearing a charmed life and nothing happening.  The Bosch shell or bullet that could hit me wasn’t made.  I could stroll about freely where it was death for anyone else to show the top of his head.  I didn’t care.  Then suddenly one day things went wrong.  You know what I mean.  I nearly let my regiment down.  It was touch and go.  And it was touch and go with my career.  I just pulled through, however.  I’ll tell you all about it one of these days—­if you’ll put up with me.”

Again the familiar twitch of the lips which looked ghastly below the bandaged eyes.  “No one ever dreamed of the hell I went through.  Then I found I was losing the nerve I had built up all these months.  I nearly went off my head.  At last I thought I would put an end to it.  It was a small attack of ours that had failed.  The men poured back over the parapet into the trench, leaving heaven knows how many dead and wounded outside.  I’m not superstitious and I don’t believe in premonitions and warnings, and so forth; but in cases of waiting like mine a man suddenly gets to know that his hour has come. ...  I got in six wounded.  Two men were shot while I was carrying them.  How I lived God knows.  It was cold hell.  My clothes were torn to rags.  As I was going for the seventh, the knob of my life-preserver was shot away and my wrist nearly broken.  I wore it with a strap, you know.  The infernal thing had been a kind of mascot.  When I realised it was gone I just stood still and shivered in a sudden, helpless funk.  The seventh man was crawling up to me.  He had a bloody face and one dragging leg.  That’s my last picture of God’s earth.  Before I could do anything—­I must have been standing sideways on—­a bullet got me across the bridge of the nose and night came down like a black curtain.  Then I ran like a hare.  Sometimes I tripped over a man, dead or wounded, and fell on my head.  I don’t remember much about this part of it.  They told me afterwards.  At last I stumbled on to the parapet and some plucky fellow got me into the trench.  It was the regulation V.C. business,” he added, “and so they gave it to me.”