"Poor old Mellor--'e warn't a bad sort, was he!"

"Ah!--an' Bell, Sergeant Bell . . . riddled they say . . . some one
seen 'm--artillery or some one!"

It hung over them like a cloud. The men talked of nothing else.

"Somebody's blundered," said one.

"It's a pity any'ow."

"It's a disgrace to the ambulance--losin' men like that."

And, also, it made the men nervous and unreliable. It was a shock.




CHAPTER XVII


"OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND!"


It may be that I have never grown up properly. I'm a very poor hand at
pretending I'm a "grown man."

Impressions of small queer things still stamp themselves with a clear
kodak-click on my mind--an ivory-white mule's skull lying in the sand