Presently, from below, the peasants at work in the gorse, shouted up to us something that I did not understand. They were standing close together, leaning on mattock and spade, grouped around something in the gorse. "What do they say?" I asked. "They have found a soldier's body." "A body?" "Long dead, Monsieur. The skeleton of one of these who scourged this coast in the old days." He rose and started leisurely down through the flowering gorse. I followed, and my dog followed me. In the shallow excavation there lay a few bones and shreds and bits of tarnished metal. I stooped and picked up a button and a belt buckle. The royal arms and the Regimental number were decipherable on the brasses. One of the peasants said: "In Quimper lives a rich man who pays for relics. God, in his compassion, sends us poor men these bones." The coastguard said: "God sends them to you for decent internment. Not to sell." "But," retorted the peasant, "these bones and bits of brass belonged to one of those who came here with fire and sword. Need we respect our enemies who slew without pity young and old? And these bones are very ancient." "The living must respect the dead, Jean Le Locard." "I am poor," muttered Le Locard. "We Bretons are born to misery and sorrow. Life is very hard. Is it any harm if I sell these bones and brasses to a rich man, and buy a little bread for my wife and little ones?" The coastguard shook his head gravely: "We Bretons may go hungry and naked, but we cannot traffic in death. Here lies a soldier, a hundred years hidden under the gorse. Nevertheless--" He touched his cap in salute. Slowly the peasants lifted their caps and stood staring down at the bones, uncovered. "Make a grave," said the coastguard simply. He pointed up at the old graveyard on the cliff above us. Then, touching my elbow, he turned away with me toward the little hamlet across the moors. "Let us find the Curé," he murmured. "We men of the sea should salute the death God sends with the respect we owe to all His gifts to man." Our three gigantic shadows led us back across the moor,--my dog, myself, and the gray-eyed silent man who knew the sea,--and something perhaps, of the sea's Creator:--and much of his fellow men. [signed] Robert W. Chambers Jim--A Soldier of the King We were machine gunners of the British Army stationed "Somewhere in France" and had just arrived at our rest billets, after a weary march from the front line sector. The stable we had to sleep in was an old, ramshackle affair, absolutely over-run with rats. Great, big, black fellows, who used to chew up our leather equipment, eat our rations, and run over out bodies at night. German gas had no effect on these rodents; in fact, they seemed to thrive on it. The floor space would comfortably accommodate about twenty men lying down, but when thirty-three, including equipment, were crowded into it, it was nearly unbearable.