And loud as the crash of a thousand shells their tankards clashed on the board: “_He is free of the mess of the Killer-men, your mate of the unfleshed sword,_ _For we know the worth of the thing he did, as we know the speed of the death_ _Which catches its man by the back of the throat and gives him water for breath;_ _As we know how the hand at the helmet cloth may tarry seconds too long,_ _When the very life of the front-line trench is staked on the beat of a gong._ _By the four you slew, by the case he smote, by the red gas cloud and the green,_ _We pass your mate for the Endless Smoke and the beer of the free Canteen._” In the lower hall of Valhalla, with the heroes of no renown, With our nameless dead of the Marne and the Aisne, of Mons and of Wipers town, With the men who killed ere they died for us, sits Rifleman Joseph Brown. GILBERT FRANKAU. 18-6-16. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How Rifleman Brown Came to Valhalla, by Gilbert Frankau