"Yes. Was that why he shot him?"
"The German didn't shoot him. He was too far gone, poor devil, to shoot anybody.... It was the Belgian captain that he left.... He was lying there, horribly wounded. His servant was with him; they were calling out to Conway--"
"Calling to him?"
"Yes. And he was going all right when some shrapnel fell--a regular shower bath, quite near, like it did with you and me. That scared him and he just turned and ran. The servant shouted to him to stop, and when he wouldn't he went after him and put a bullet through his back."
"That Belgian boy?"
"Yes. I couldn't do anything. I had the German. It was all over in a second.... When I got there I found the Belgian standing up over him, wiping his bayonet with his pockethandkerchief. He said his rifle went off by accident."
"Couldn't it? Rifles do."
"Bayonets don't.... I suppose I could get him court martialed if I tried. But I shan't. After all, it was his captain. I don't blame him, Charlotte."
"No.... It was really you and me, Billy. We brought him back to be killed."
"I don't know that we did bring him--that he wasn't coming by himself. He couldn't keep off it. Even if we did, you wouldn't be sorry for that, would you?"
"No. It was the best thing we could do for him."
But at night, lying awake in her bed, she cried. For then she remembered what he had been. On Barrow Hill, on their seat in the beech ring, through the Sunday evenings, when feeding time and milking time were done.
* * * * *
At four o'clock in the morning she was waked by Sutton, standing beside her bed. The orders had come through to evacuate the hospital. Three hours later the ambulances had joined the great retreat.