"You're in the right direction--don't turn round!"
Then the lad got up to go on. He struggled to lift the box of ammunition.
I whispered to him hoarsely: "You're not going on--you will never get
there. It is certain death."
"Good-by, old boy," was his answer. "You don't think because the rest of
you have gone down that I am going to be a piker. Say 'Hello!' to Mother
for me should you see her before I do."
I have never seen his mother. I do not know her. If she lives she has the
memory of a son who, though a boy in years, was a soldier and a very
gallant gentleman. Bob tried to reach the trench, but a rain of bullets got
him and he fell dead only a little way from me.
I lay where I had fallen for some time. I don't know how long, but long
enough to see our boys captured by the enemy. And in so dreadful a plight
as I was I had to smile. Those men who had boasted they would kill
themselves, surrendered with the rest. Life is very sweet. There is always
a chance of living, and always a chance of escape no matter how brutal the
system in German prison camps.
Every man in that trench surrendered honorably.
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