As men stood ready to drop in their tracks at Thiaucourt that night, too weary to move, utterly exhausted mentally and physically by the terrific strain under which they had been for the last twenty-four hours, it was the unpleasant duty of roll-call that fell to Sergeant Tom Walton. He would far rather have escaped it, but discipline required that he do the task at hand without murmur or complaint, and it was in this case as it is so often in war—the sooner over, the better for all. And so he took up the roster of the company, cast a swift glance over the men before him, and in what he tried to make a dull monotone, began. From time to time some man suddenly would stiffen and his lips would be drawn into a hard line, as the name of his “bunkie” was called and there was no response. When Tom knew of his own knowledge that one in his own ranks had been killed or wounded, he skipped over his name with only the quickest articulation, going rapidly to the next, in order that no undue emphasis might be laid upon the casualties that had befallen Company C in the brave assault that had more than obtained them their given objective. But there were others—a great many others—of whose absence he was not aware, and after each of these names there was that awed, painful silence in which time had to be taken to record the fact that the man was among the missing. They were intervals in which it seemed that a pin could be heard dropping upon the ground. Men gave no outward sign of their grief, but each knew what all the others felt. It was Tom himself who broke the terrible strain of the thing. He was down the alphabet as far as O. “Jockey Ogden,” he suddenly called; and as Ollie responded with a brief but energetic “Here, but without mount,” a laugh ran along the line, and everyone felt better for the merest excuse for throwing off the inevitable melancholy accompanying roll-call after battle. When it was over, Tom sought out Ollie and Harper, who by that time had returned to his company, assured that his “bang in the slats,” as he expressed it, at the hands of Tom’s later prisoner, was perhaps painful, but in no way a permanent or even serious injury. In subdued tones Tom told them of the death of Major Sweeney. Would they go with him back into the night and over the ground they had traversed that day, to find the body and give it decent burial? Would they? Why, of course they would. And through the mind of each was running the same thing. How it was Major Sweeney himself to whom they had first gone when they had determined to enlist together—Major Sweeney, whose house near Brighton always was open to boys of that school; who was always ready with a helping hand, and who personally had coached the best football eleven that Brighton ever had put upon the gridiron.