The company, he reflected,
would get a bad name if too many men reported sick at once.
Next day he was absent from parade. He was "for Cambridge" at last.
Before he died, he sent for the officer who had befriended him, and
supplemented, or rather corrected, some of the information contained
in his attestation paper.
He lived in Dumbarton, not Renfrewshire. He was just sixteen. He was
not--this confession cost him a great effort--a full-blown "holder-on"
at all; only an apprentice. His father was "weel kent" in the town
of Dumbarton, being a chief engineer, employed by a great firm of
shipbuilders to extend new machinery on trial trips.
Needless to say, he made a great fight. But though his heart was
big enough, his body was too frail. As they say on the sea, he was
over-engined for his beam.
And so, three days later, the simple soul of Twenty-seven fifty-four
Carmichael, "A" Company, was transferred, on promotion, to another
company--the great Company of Happy Warriors who walk the Elysian
Fields.
III
"_Firing parrty, one round blank_--_load_!"
There is a rattle of bolts, and a dozen barrels are pointed
heavenwards. The company stands rigid, except the buglers, who are
beginning to finger their instruments.
"_Fire!_"
There is a crackling volley, and the pipes break into a brief, sobbing
wail. Wayfarers upon the road below look up curiously.
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