Then news came that David had died. The regimental doctor, a throat specialist in civil life, had told him at the dressing-station: ‘You’ll be all right, only don’t raise your head for a bit.’ David had then, it was said, taken a letter from his pocket, given it to an orderly, and said: ‘Post that.’ It was a letter written to a girl in Glamorgan, to be posted in case he got killed. Then the doctor saw that he was choking; he tried trachotomy, but it was too late. Edmund and I were talking together in the company headquarters at about one o’clock when the adjutant came in. He looked ghastly. He told us that Richardson had died at the dressing-station. His heart had been weakened by rowing (he had been in the Eight at Radley) and the explosion and the cold water had been too much for it. The adjutant said to me nervously: ‘You know, somehow I feel, I—I feel responsible in a way for this; what I said yesterday at ‘Trafalgar Square.’ Of course, really, I don’t believe in superstition, but....’ Just at that moment there was a noise of whizz-bang shells about twenty yards off; a cry of alarm, followed by: ‘Stretcher-bearers!’ The adjutant turned quite white and we knew without being told what it meant. We hurried out. Pritchard, having fought his duel all night, and finally silenced the enemy, was coming off duty. A whizz-bang had caught him at the point where the communication trench reached Maple Redoubt; it was a direct hit. The casualties of that night were three officers and one corporal. It seemed ridiculous when we returned without Richardson to A Company billets to find ‘Triste La Guerre’ still alive and to hear her once more quaver out ‘Triste, la guerre’ when her daughter explained that the _jeune capitaine_ had been killed. The old woman had taken a fancy to the _jeune capitaine_; we used to chaff him about it. I felt David’s death worse than any other death since I had been in France. It did not anger me as it did Siegfried. He was acting transport-officer and every night now, when he came up with the rations, he went out on patrol looking for Germans. It just made me feel empty and lost.