On the instant the ex-navvy found himself pushed with his back against the wall, looking into a grim row of rifle-barrels. The squad that menaced him stood equably waiting the word of command. The officer rose, walked across to him and smiled in his face. Once more he drew out his watch. "One minute," he said pleasantly. "One minute to prove that you are a soldier and no spy." Sam stood as erect as suddenly enfeebled knees would let him. He felt the bricks of the wall pushing against his back in the instinctive retreat of his body from the imminent danger. His eyes were fixed on the officer who stood calmly regarding his watch. He felt sick and dizzy and very cold. He shivered as in a mantle of ice. His mouth went dry. The panic-stricken part of his brain began an attempt to count the seconds without any revolt at the stubborn decision of his directing self. One, two, three--twenty--thirty--the minute seemed endlessly long. He moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, striving desperately to bring himself to speech in the fraction of time which remained to him. He succeeded. His voice came raucously, an agonised appeal. "Mates!--Remember--the Ole Kent Road!" The officer uttered a sharp sound and the windows shook with the loud report of the rifles. In a thin haze of smoke, the prisoners saw Sam lurch forward, his arms outstretched, swaying on his toes for one ghastly moment ere he pitched. The officer calmly replaced his watch and brushed past Oswald. He seized Bill by the arm. "You!" he said, with that sudden and disconcerting anger of his. "Will you speak?" Bill stood sheepishly staring at him. "The Ole Kent Road--'Ome!" he mumbled to himself. Relentless hands pushed him against the wall. At his feet lay Sam, a dark pool forming under him. "Will you speak?" vociferated the officer. "'Ome," mumbled Bill. "'Ome!--Oh, Gawd!" He ignored the demand--seemed not to hear it. The officer, exasperated, stamped upon the gravel. Again he uttered the sharp order, again the windows shook. Bill slid down the wall with his head on his breast. The officer turned to the survivor, the petty rogue, nurtured fatherless in a London slum. "Now, my man," he said cheerfully. "You see I am not to be trifled with. Come--tell me what corps passed through here yesterday." He added with a smile of contempt, "These scruples are absurd in a deserter." A cunning grin came over Oswald's face. "Yah!" he said. "Deserter, am I? So I am, but I ain't goin' to peach on my pals. They've give yer the slip right enough--an' yer knows it. Yah!" He finished with an ugly grimace. A moment later, he also stood with his back to the wall. "Yah!" he cried, and grinned as at some private joke. The rifles spoke and he spun and fell. In his pocket was the officer's gold watch. At the foot of a bullet-marked wall lay three worthless soldiers. Far away, a beaten army, lost for the nonce in the fog of war, rallied itself without molestation for another struggle.