He washed hurriedly, and then stared down with a shamed look at his muddy uniform, all creased and bedraggled. After that he asked if he could get out downstairs, and I told him the door was unlocked.

He hesitated for a moment before leaving my room.

“I am sorry to have given you all this trouble. It was very decent of you. Many thanks.”

The boy was a gentleman when sober. I wonder if he died at Pozières, or farther on by the Butte de Warlencourt⁠ ⁠… A week later I saw an advertisement in an Amiens paper: “Horse found. Brown, with white sock on right foreleg. Apply⁠—”

I have a fancy it was the horse for which we had searched in the rain.