‘Yes. Also I would like to speak to you ... I ... I ... killed ... one of your officers ... just now?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I ... saw him fall. As he fell he fired at me too. I am sorry I killed him. Will you tell his ... his ... people so? And tell them, too, that it is just war ... silly, wasteful war. He was a soldier, was he, by profession I mean?’ ‘Yes, a soldier.’ ‘Then it is his death ... I am only a soldier as all of us are soldiers. In peace I make music, compose you call it. Music is better than war.’ ‘Far better,’ I answered grimly enough. ‘If I had lived I would have written great things. I had vowed it. I had in my head ... I have it still ... a ... wonderful ballet. It would have been finer than Petrouchka—as great as _Coq-d’Or_. And the ballet of our enemies, the Russians, would have performed it.... Enemies! how silly it is.’ He smiled. My heart beat a little faster. This was madness, sheer madness, for us to be discussing music and the Russian ballet on the battlefield and with him dying. But at the words ‘_Coq-d’Or_’ my memory had suddenly stirred, and I carried on the conversation eagerly. ‘_Coq-d’Or_ is wonderful, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Where have you seen it?’ ‘Where have I not?’ he answered. ‘In Moscow, Berlin, Paris, in London. It is great, astonishing.’ ‘In London?’ ‘But a short time ago—just before the war. I ... I ... had a friend. I was staying with him. He, too, was a soldier. I forget in what regiment. I was not interested in armies then.’ He stirred uneasily and partially turned over on his side. I put my arm beneath him, moistened his lips with the water. He sighed and began to wander in his talk, the words German, beyond my comprehension. Yet one kept recurring that told me all, everything. He must not, should not die yet! Only for a minute or two did his delirium last. Then his senses returned and quite suddenly he pressed my hand, and though his voice was fainter the words were distinct and spoken very slowly as though he wished to be sure I understood. ‘I ... I want you to do something for me.... I am sure you will. We are both gentlemen....’ His hand moved to his breast and he made as if to take something from his tunic. ‘In the pocket of my coat, inside, there is a little leather case. Inside that ... a photograph of a lady, of an English lady too.’ (Oh! little world, O narrow little world!) ‘It has been with me through the war. I dare not and would not have shown it to one of my comrades.... When I die I want you to take it out and send it to the Honourable Richard Belvoir. He was a lord’s son, my friend, and the photograph is of his sister. I ... she did not know it, you understand?... I loved her.’