When he judged it to be deep enough he put the rigid body of his comrade in and began covering him with great shovelfuls of sand. Then he smoothed the tomb, planted the cross and adjusted the red badge of death----[6] In an impressive moment of silence--for both sides looked on without losing a single movement--they saw him advance to the head of the knoll, his face to the cross, click his heels and give the military salute---- He came back slowly to our lines and jumped briskly into the trench. Immediately he began to pace up and down before his squad back of the parapet, with fixed bayonet, facing the grave his hands had dug. "Stand at ease!" said he, "listen carefully. My men who fall will not lack a burial nor will they lie in the open air like rotting dogs. Break!" * * * * * Fifteen days later a German bullet struck him in the head back of a loophole. He was killed instantly. His comrades interred him in the Zouave cemetery at Nieuport-Baths. They wrote his name on a piece of paper, which they rolled up and placed in a bottle---- THE DEATH OF THE TERRITORIAL, NIEUPORT. _May_, 1915. It has rained all day. Toward nightfall only did rain cease to fall. The sky is gray and heavy, but the air is fresh. The Marines in their dripping oilskins walk to and fro in the trench. The air is so clear that we can see, over there on the horizon, the silhouette of Bruges, with its old houses and high towers. "It is sad to see you so mirage-like and far away, oh! Bruges the captive, brave city, in all your history you have thirsted for liberty----" Two hours pass and it is time to rejoin my comrades at the cantonment. But I turn again and again to review the panorama before me. I come at last to Nieuport. As I enter the principal street, I see going ahead a brave Territorial, who also returns to the cantonment unshaven and unkempt after his long vigil in the trenches. He is completely equipped with all his personal belongings, but is in no hurry. This brave man is leaving the front for good because he is the father of five children. He precedes me some thirty paces and I hasten to catch up with him. We arrive at the top of the Casino, when, suddenly, a whistling announces the arrival of a shell--explosion, smoke--a jagged piece of metal strikes him in the head and I see the man fall in front of me. The acrid smoke gags me, but I am quickly at his side. He is dead: fractured skull--his face purple--mouth open--his brains strewn on the pavement---- * * * * * That night while I am at dinner with my comrades, an orderly comes to say that there is someone outside who wishes to speak with me. In the darkened passageway I scarcely recognize the chaplain of the 16th Territorials, a man very simple and good.