The commander of the company was a middle-aged, amiable person who had been worked so hard during the past year that he had nothing left to carry on with except courage. At sight of Dick he rejoiced, for Dick had a big reputation. He took off his boots and belt, retired to his blankets and told his batman to wake him when the war was over. The relief was too much for him; it had come too late. The more he rested the worse he felt, and at last the medical officer sent him out on a stretcher. Fever and a general breakdown held him at the base for several weeks, and then he was shipped to Blighty. So Dick got a company and his third star, and no one begrudged him the one or the other.

The Canadian Corps worked all winter in preparation for its great spring task. The Germans fortified and intrenched and mightily garrisoned along all the great ridge of Vimy, harassed the preparing legions with shells and bombs and looked contemptuously out and down upon us from their strong vantage points. Others had failed to wrest Vimy from them. But night and day the Canadians went on with their preparations.

Word that the United States of America had declared war on Germany reached the toilers before Vimy on April 7; and within the week there came a night of gunfire that rocked the earth and tore the air. With morning the gunfire ceased, only to break forth again in lesser volume as the jumping barrages were laid along the ridge; and then, in a storm of wind and snow, the battalions went over on a five-division front, company after company, wave after wave, riflemen, bombers and Lewis gunners. The Canadians were striking after their winter of drudgery.

One of our men, a Yankee by birth, went over that morning with a miniature Stars and Stripes tied to his bayonet. We cleared out the Huns and took the ridge; and for days the water that filled the shell holes and mine craters over that ground was red with Canadian blood, and the plank roads were slippery with it from the passing of our wounded.

Dick went through that fight in front of his company and came out of it speechless with exhaustion, but unhit. Hiram Sill survived it with his arm in a sling. Maj. Henry Starkley was wounded again, again not seriously. Maj. Patrick Hammond was killed, and Corp. Jim Hammond was carried back the next day with a torn scalp and a crushed knee.

On the tenth day after that battle Lieut. Hiram Sill and his company commander were the recipients of extraordinary news. Mr. Sill was requested to visit the colonel without loss of time. He turned up within the minute and saluted with his left hand.

"You are wanted back in the U. S. A., Hiram, for instructional purposes," said the colonel, looking over a mess of papers at his elbow. "You don't have to go if you don't want to. Here it is—and to be made out in triplicate, of course."

Hiram examined the papers.

"And here is something else that will interest you," continued the colonel. "News for you and Dick Starkley. You have your M. C."

Hiram's eyes shone.

"And Dick seems to have hooked the same for his work on the Somme—and I had given up all hope of that coming through. I recommended him for a D. S. O. last week. The way these recommendations for awards are handled beats me. They put them all into a hat and then chuck the hat out of the window, I guess, and whatever recommendations are picked up in the street and returned through the post are approved and acted upon. I know a chap—come back here!"

Hiram turned at the door of the hut.

"Do you intend to accept that job?"

"Yes, sir."

"You have a choice between going over to the American army with your rank or simply being seconded from the Canadians for that duty. What do you mean to do?"

"Seconded, sir. I am an American citizen clear through, colonel, but I have worn this cut of uniform too long to change it in this war."

Hiram found Dick in his billet, reading a letter. Dick received the news of the awards and of Hiram's appointment very quietly.

"Jack Davenport has gone west," he said.

Hiram sat down and stared at Dick without a word.

"This letter is from Kathleen," continued Dick. "She says Jack went out on Monday to visit some of the people he helps. He had taken on six more widows and seven more babies since the Vimy show. On his way home toward evening he and Wilson were outside the Blackfriars underground station, looking for a taxi, when a lorry took a skid fair at an old woman and little boy who were just making the curb. Wilson swears that Jack jumped from the curb as if there were nothing wrong with him, landed fair in front of the lorry, knocked the old woman and kid out from under, but fell before he could get clear himself."

"Killed?"

"Instantly."

Hiram gazed down at his muddy boots, and Dick continued to regard the letter in his hand.

"Can you beat it?" said Hiram at last.

Dick got up and paced about the little room, busy with his thoughts. Finally he spoke.

"Sacobie is flying, and you are booked for the States, and I am going to transfer to Jack's old lot," he said slowly.

Hiram looked up at him, but did not speak.

"Jack wanted me to," continued Dick. "Well, why not? It's the same old army and the same old war. A fellow should make an effort to oblige a man like Jack—dead or alive." He was silent for several seconds, then went on: "Henry has been offered a staff job in London. Peter is safe. Sacobie has brought down four Boche machines already. What have you heard about Jim Hammond?"

"It's Blighty for him—and then Canada. He'll never in the world bend that leg again."

For a while Dick continued to pace back and forth across the muddy floor in silence.

"We are scattering, Old Psychology," he said. "This war is a great scatterer—but there are some things it can't touch. You'll be homesick at your new job, Hiram,—and I'll be homesick with the Essex bunch, I suppose,—but there are some things that make it all seem worth the rotten misery of it." He glanced down at Kathleen's letter, then put it into his pocket. "Jack Davenport, for one," he ended.

"A soldier and a gentlemen," said Hiram.

THE END