Silence followed for half a minute, the two officers avoiding each
other's eyes.

"He has a curious wish," the Doctor resumed, still with his face
averted and his gaze directed on the dull outline of Looe Island, a
mile away. "He says he knows he's disgracing the Company: but he's
anxious, all the same, to have a military funeral: says if you can
promise this, he'll feel in a way that he's forgiven."

"He shall have it, of course."

"Ah, but that's not all. You remember, a couple of years back, when
they had us down to Pendennis Castle for a week's drill, there was a
funeral of a Sergeant-Major in the Loyal Meneage; and how the band
played a sort of burial tune ahead of the body? Well, Fugler asked
me if you couldn't manage this Dead March, as he calls it, as well.
He can whistle the tune if you want to know it. It seems it made a
great impression on him."

"Then the man must be wandering! How the dickens can we manage a
Dead March without a band?--and we haven't even a fife and drum!"

"That's what I told him. I suppose we couldn't do anything with the
church musicians."

"There's only one man in the Company who belongs to the gallery, and
that's Uncle Issy Spettigew: and he plays the bass-viol. I doubt if
you can play the Dead March on a bass-viol, and I'm morally certain
you can't play it and walk with it too. I suppose we can't borrow a
band from another Company?"