Lieutenant Ridley, who was affectionately known as ‘Riddles’ in the corps, came of a celebrated Northumbrian family, one of his ancestors being Bishop Ridley, who, bound to the stake at Oxford, ‘played the man’ with Latimer amid the flames. ‘It may well be,’ states a sympathetic admirer of this gallant officer, ‘that there came across the desert from Gordon at Khartoum a message in the words of Latimer, “Be of good cheer, Master Gordon, and play the man.”’ The fallen hero was a young man of attractive appearance and great charm of manner. His character, as known to intimate friends, confirms in all respects the interpretation put upon his last act, ‘He gave his life in the hope that his companion might be saved.’ Both Lieutenant S. G. Ridley and Air-Mechanic J. A. Garside were unmarried, but Garside was the only son of a widowed mother, and evidently in the mind of his heroic companion had special claims upon life. A chaplain with a party of service men paid the last honours. At the head of the grave a cross was erected. CHAPTER XXI SOUS-LIEUTENANT LOUIS NOËL An Army Order, signed by General Sarrail, describes how Lieutenant Noël, when hardly convalescent from a grave operation, from the effects of which he was still suffering, effected on two occasions the bombardment of an enemy capital, and assured a long-distance link between two friendly armies, covering 1,100 kilometres (roughly 700 miles) there and back, of which 850 kilometres (over 500 miles) were over enemy territory. Lieutenant Noël is an old pilot, remarkable for his address, his bravery, his coolness, and his modesty. Numerous difficult and perilous missions in France and in the Orient have been successfully carried out by him, and in addition to the Cross of the Legion of Honour he has earned the Médaille Militaire, the Croix de Guerre, and the Russian Cross of St. George.