‘It’s a long way to Tipperary,’ said Jacko, ‘an’ there’s bound to be a turnin’ in it somewheres.’ ‘An’ it’s a longer way to Berlin if we keeps on marchin’ like this with our backs to it,’ grumbled Peter. The sound of another approaching shell rose from a faint moan to a loud shriek, to a roar, to a wild torrent of yelling, whooping, rush-of-an-express-train, whirlwind noise; and then, just when it seemed to each man that the shell was about to fall directly on his own individual head, it burst with a harsh crash over them, and a storm of bullets and fragments whistled and hummed down, hitting the fields’ soft ground with deep _whutts_, clashing sharply on the harder road. A young officer jerked out a cry, stumbled blindly forward a few paces with outstretched arms, pitched, and fell heavily on his face. He was close to where Peter and Jacko marched, and the two shambled hastily together to where he lay, lifted and turned him over. Neither needed a second look. ‘Done in,’ said Peter briefly, and ‘Never knew wot hit ’im,’ agreed Jacko. An officer ran back to them, followed slowly and heavily by another. There was no question as to what should be done with the lad’s body. He had to be left there, and the utmost they could do for him was to lift and carry him--four dog-tired men hardly able to lift their feet and carry their own bodies--to a cottage by the roadside, and bring him into an empty room with a litter of clothes and papers spilled about the floor from the tumbled drawers, and lay him on a dishevelled bed and spread a crumpled sheet over him. ‘Let’s hope they’ll bury him decently,’ said one of the officers. The other was pocketing the watch and few pitiful trinkets he had taken from the lad’s pockets. ‘Hope so,’ he said dully. ‘Not that it matters much to poor old Dicky. Come on, we must move, or I’ll never be able to catch the others up.’ They left the empty house quietly, pulling the door gently shut behind them. ‘Pore little Blinker,’ said Jacko as they trudged up the road after the battalion; ‘the best bloomin’ officer the platoon ever ’ad.’ ‘The best I ever ’ad in all my seven,’ said Peter. ‘I ain’t forgettin’ the way ’e stood up for me afore the C.O. at Aldershot when I was carpeted for drunk. And ’im tryin’ to stand wi’ the right side of ’is face turned away from the light, so the C.O. wouldn’t spot the black eye I gave ’im in that same drunk!’ ‘Ah, an’ that was just like ’im,’ said Jacko. ‘An’ to think ’e’s washed out with a ’ole in the back of his ’ead--the back of it, mind you.’ Peter cursed sourly.