But that night Burnett went to the doctor and said that he was too ill to go on. So far as the rest of us knew, he had never had anything but the inevitable preliminary attack of dysentery, though it is only fair to say that most of us were so wrapped up in the exquisite contemplation of our own sufferings, that we had little time to study the condition of others. The doctor, however, had no doubts about Burnett; he sent him back to us with a flea in his ear and a dose of chlorodyne. The story leaked out quickly, and there was much comment adverse to Burnett. When Harry heard it, he led me away to his dug-out. It was an evening of heavy calm, like the inside of a cathedral. Only a few mules circling dustily at exercise in the velvet gloom, and the distant glimmer of the Scotsmen's fires, made any stir of movement. The men had gone early to their blankets, and now sang softly their most sentimental songs, reserved always for the night before another journey to the line. They sang them in a low croon of ecstatic melancholy, marvellously in tune with the purple hush of the evening. For all its aching regret it was a sound full of hope and gentle resolution. Harry whispered to me, 'You heard about Burnett? Thank God, nobody can say those things about me! I'm not going off this Peninsula till I'm pushed off.' I said nothing. It was a heroic sentiment, and this was the heroic hour. It is what men say in the morning that matters.... In the morning we moved off as the sun came up. There had been heavy firing nearly all night, and over Achi Baba in the cloudless sky there hung a portent. It was as though some giant had been blowing smoke-rings, and with inhuman dexterity had twined and laced these rings together, without any of them losing their perfection of form.... As the sun came up these cloud-rings stood out a rosy pink against the blue distance, and while we marched through the sleeping camps turned gently through dull gold to pale pearl. I have never known what made this marvel, a few clouds forgotten by the wind, or the smoke of the night's battle; but I marched with my eyes upon it all the stumbling way to Achi Baba. And when I found Harry at a halt, he, too, was gazing at the wonder with all his men. 'It's an omen,' he said. 'Good or bad?' 'Good,' he said. I have never understood omens; I suppose they are good or bad according to the mind of the man who sees them: and I was glad that Harry thought it was good. VI It was one of the Great Dates: one of those red dates which build up the calendar of a soldier's past, and dwell in his memory when the date of his own birth is almost forgotten. It is strange what definite sign-posts these dates of a man's battle--days become in his calculation of time--like the foundation of Rome. An old soldier will sigh and say, 'Yes, I know that was when Jim died--it was ten days after the Fourth of June,' or, 'I was promoted the day before the Twelfth of July.'