‘Not if I can do anything!’ said the Surgeon-Major, who had hastened over from the mess where he had been dining.

He and the Regimental Surgeon fought together with Death for the life of Bobby Wick. Their work was interrupted by a hairy apparition in a bluegray dressing-gown who stared in horror at the bed and cried—‘Oh, my Gawd! It can’t be ’im!’ until an indignant Hospital Orderly whisked him away.

If care of man and desire to live could have done aught, Bobby would have been saved. As it was, he made a fight of three days, and the Surgeon-Major’s brow uncreased. ‘We’ll save him yet,’ he said; and the Surgeon, who, though he ranked with the Captain, had a very youthful heart, went out upon the word and pranced joyously in the mud.

‘Not going out this journey,’ whispered Bobby Wick gallantly, at the end of the third day.

‘Bravo!’ said the Surgeon-Major. ‘That’s the way to look at it, Bobby.’

As evening fell a gray shade gathered round Bobby’s mouth, and he turned his face to the tent wall wearily. The Surgeon-Major frowned.

‘I’m awfully tired,’ said Bobby, very faintly. ‘What’s the use of bothering me with medicine? I—don’t—want—it. Let me alone.’

The desire for life had departed, and Bobby was content to drift away on the easy tide of Death.

‘It’s no good,’ said the Surgeon-Major. ‘He doesn’t want to live. He’s meeting it, poor child.’ And he blew his nose.

Half a mile away the regimental band was playing the overture to the Sing-song, for the men had been told that Bobby was out of danger. The clash of the brass and the wail of the horns reached Bobby’s ears.

An expression of hopeless irritation crossed the boy’s face, and he tried to shake his head.

The Surgeon-Major bent down—‘What is it, Bobby?’—‘Not that waltz,’ muttered Bobby. ‘That’s our own—our very ownest own. … Mummy dear.’

With this he sank into the stupor that gave place to death early next morning.

Revere, his eyes red at the rims and his nose very white, went into Bobby’s tent to write a letter to Papa Wick which should bow the white head of the ex-Commissioner of Chota-Buldana in the keenest sorrow of his life. Bobby’s little store of papers lay in confusion on the table, and among them a half-finished letter. The last sentence ran: ‘So you see, darling, there is really no fear, because as long as I know you care for me and I care for you, nothing can touch me.’

Revere stayed in the tent for an hour. When he came out his eyes were redder than ever.

Private Conklin sat on a turned-down bucket, and listened to a not unfamiliar tune. Private Conklin was a convalescent and should have been tenderly treated.

‘Ho!’ said Private Conklin. ‘There’s another bloomin’ orf’cer da—ed.’

The bucket shot from under him, and his eyes filled with a smithyful of sparks. A tall man in a blue-gray bedgown was regarding him with deep disfavour.