The end came one day in early spring. The battery was in action in a part of the line where it was impossible to have the horses far away, for in those days we had to be prepared for any emergency. It so happened that the enemy, in the course of his usual morning ‘_strafe_,’ whether by luck or by intention, put an eight-inch howitzer shell into the middle of the secluded field where a few of our horses were sunning themselves in the warm air and picking at the scanty grass. Fortunately, they had been hobbled so that there was no stampede. The cloud of smoke and dust cleared away and we thought at first that no harm had been done. Then we noticed Bilfred lying on his side ten yards or so from the crater, his hind quarters twitching convulsively. As we went towards him, he lifted his head and tried to look at the gaping, jagged wound in his flank and back. There was agony in his soft brown eyes, but he made no sound. He made a desperate effort to get up, but could only raise his forehand. He remained thus for a moment, swaying unsteadily and in terrible distress. Then he dropped back and lay still. A minute later he gave one long deep sigh—and it was over. Our old farrier, who in his twenty years’ service had seen many horses come and go and who was not often given to sentiment, looked at him sadly. ‘’E’s gone,’ he said. ‘A good ’oss—won’t see the like of him again in the batt’ry this trip, I reckon.’ And Bilfred’s driver, the man who had been with him from the start, ceased his futile efforts to stem the flow of blood with a dirty handkerchief. ‘Oh! Gawd!’ he muttered in a voice of despair, and turned his back upon us all to hide his grief. We kept a hoof, to be mounted for the battery mess when peace comes, for he was the last of the old lot and his memory must not be allowed to fade. The fatigue party digging his grave did not grumble at their task. He was an older member of the battery than them all and a comrade rather than a beast of burden. * * * * * I like to imagine that Bilfred had a soul—not such a soul as we try to conceive for ourselves perhaps—but still I like to picture him in some heaven suitable to his simple needs, dwelling in quiet peacefulness among the departed of his race. What a company would be his and what tales he would hear!—Tales of the chariots of Assyria and Rome, of the fleet Parthians and the ravaging hosts of Attila; stories of Charlemagne and King Arthur, of the lists and all the pomp of chivalry. And so down through the centuries to the crossing of the Alps in 1800 and the grim tragedy of Moscow twelve years later. Would he stamp his feet and toss his head proudly when he heard of the Greys at Waterloo or the Light Brigade at Balaclava? But stories of the guns would delight him more, I think—Fuentes D’Onoro, Maiwand, Néry, and Le Cateau.