“It's all right,” I said. “Go quietly, and I will get you upstairs safely.” It was astonishing how quietly he went, hanging on to me. The little colonel was reading The Times in the salon. We passed the open door, and saw over the paper his high forehead puckered with perplexity as to the ways of the world. But he did not raise his head or drop The Times at the sound of our entry. I took the boy upstairs to my room and guided him inside. He said, “Thanks awfully,” and then lay down on the floor and fell into so deep a sleep that I was scared and thought for a moment he might be dead. I went downstairs to chat with the little colonel and form an alibi in case of trouble. An hour later, when I went into my room, I found the boy still lying as I had left him, without having stirred a limb. He was a handsome fellow, with his head hanging limply across his right arm and a lock of damp hair falling across his forehead. I thought of a son of mine, who in a few years would be as old as he, and I prayed God mine might be spared this boy's tragedy... Through the night he slept in a drugged way, but just at dawn he woke up and stretched himself, with a queer little moan. Then he sat up and said: “Where am I?” “In a billet at Amiens. You lost your horse last night and I brought you here.” Remembrance came into his eyes and his face was swept with a sudden flush of shame and agony. “Yes... I made a fool of myself. The worst possible. How can I get back to Pozieres?” “You could jump a lorry with luck.” “I must. It's serious if I don't get back in time. In any case, the loss of that horse--” He thought deeply for a moment, and I could see that his head was aching to the beat of sledge-hammers. “Can I wash anywhere?” I pointed to a jug and basin, and he said, “Thanks, enormously.” He washed hurriedly, and then stared down with a shamed look at his muddy uniform, all creased and bedraggled. After that he asked if he could get out downstairs, and I told him the door was unlocked. He hesitated for a moment before leaving my room. “I am sorry to have given you all this trouble. It was very decent of you. Many thanks.” The boy was a gentleman when sober. I wonder if he died at Pozieres, or farther on by the Butte de Warlencourt... A week later I saw an advertisement in an Amiens paper: “Horse found. Brown, with white sock on right foreleg. Apply--” I have a fancy it was the horse for which we had searched in the rain. XII