He was conscious that it was a foolishly futile thought at a supreme moment. His life seemed pouring out of his head, his vitality was running down as a motor engine, suddenly cut off. He felt death descending upon him with appalling swiftness. Where would the world go to? And what next? He was afraid. Then, with a tremendous effort he turned his thoughts on God, and waited for death. He was swimming in that black fury-sea that was neither wet nor clinging. He was made of lead in a universe that weighed nothing. He was sinking, sinking. In vain he struggled. The dark, dry waters closed over him.... * * * * * Still the waterfalls pounded in his ears, and still the dry waves reeled before his eyes, and under his head a pool, sticky and warm. What was that? This time surely something tangible and real moving towards him. With a supreme effort he tried to jerk his body into moving. His left leg moved. It moved wearily; but still it moved. His left arm too. What was this? The right arm and leg were gone, gone. The rest of him was flabbergasted at the horror of the discovery. No, not gone! They were there. But they would not move. He could not even _try_ to move them. He could not so much as _feel_ them. Then he awoke to the horror of the thing. His right side was dead! * * * * * The shape was really alive. It resolved itself into a man crawling in the darkness to his rescue. "You need not bother about me, I'm done for. Get back into the trench." He had a feeling that though he meant his lips to frame these words, he was in reality saying something quite different. It was an exhausting effort to speak. The form asked him questions in a fierce whisper. He had not the strength to understand or answer. Very slowly and cautiously he was dragged over the few yards of ground that separated him from the first hole. It was awful. His brain conceived the thought: "For God's sake let me die in peace." But his lips were all twisted, and refused to move at the bidding of his brain. He could only groan. With wonderful gentleness the man placed his Officer's broken head over the hole, and with the help of another man lowered him into it. His next thought was: "Well, they can only hit my feet, now!" There had not been room in the hole for all of him, so his feet had been left protruding out of it. The thought fanned some smouldering ember of humour in him. A moment later he discovered with a thrill-- "I'm going to live, I'm going to live. I _will_ live!" The discovery, and the resolution which followed, by no means excited him. He arrived quite quietly at the conclusion. And set his mind to await the development of the next event.