I beg you to accept my heartfelt condolences. I would not so much as hint at the word consolation to you after this unutterably cruel blow,--even to us, his chance friends of less than a year, it seems too cruel to be realisable,--were it not that I can give you some account, at first hand, of the splendid work of your husband on those days, September 25th and 26th. It must surely be, eventually, a consolation to you to think that he died no mean, casual death, but that he was shot down (on the afternoon of Sunday a week ago) when actually on an errand of help, and after giving himself up for hour after hour to heavy and perilous toil for the wounded. I have been at some pains to get for you some details of that fatal afternoon, but I cannot--the reason will be obvious--now tell you quite all there is. The essential is that on Sunday morning an appeal came to our station for stretcher-bearers to assist a battalion, seven of whose bearers were out of action. Your husband and two other men set out for the trenches in question, which were to the south-west of Loos. The journey, itself, had its perils. Over the distance of two miles or thereabouts, the Germans, who were rallying after their defeat of the day before, could enfilade our ground. One day I will explain the position with precision. The three of them eventually reached the series of trenches at a moment when the Germans were counter-attacking, and were told by an officer that stretcher-work was impossible at such a moment. It was suicide to show one's head above the parapet. This was, of course, one of the old German trenches, and the enemy fire came both from front and right flank. Chapin consequently told the two others to wait for him while he reported to the medical officer who had appealed in the morning, his intention being to return to collect the wounded after dark, as we did during the week as a matter of routine. The two never saw him again. Our line that afternoon wavered for a moment, before the counter-attack. There was a short period of confusion, and some of our men were caught in the open by German rifle and machine-gun fire. You may possibly one day get an exact account from an actual eye-witness, but from what I can piece together, your husband went over the parapet to fetch in some wounded man. He was certainly shot in the foot. It appears that he persisted and was then killed outright by a shot through the head. Our work was so exacting at that moment, that hours passed before Chapin's absence was noticed at our station, and it was not till the following morning that we felt anxious.