He was good to look on.He was big and tall,and held himself upright.His eyes looked his own height.He moved with the grace of an athlete.His skin was tanned by a wholesome outdoor life,and his eyes were clear and wide open.Physically he was a prince among men.We used to notice,as we marched along the road and passed other officers,that they always looked pleased to see him.They greeted him with a cordiality which was reserved for him.Even the general seemed to have singled him out,and cast an eye of special approval upon him.Somehow,gentle though he was,he was never familiar.He had a kind of innate nobility which marked him out as above us.He was not democratic.He was rather the justification for aristocracy.We all knew instinctively that he was our superiora man of finer temper than ourselves,a"toff "in his own right.I suppose that that was why he could be so humble without loss of dignity.For he was humble,too,if that is the right word,and I think it is.No trouble of ours was too small for him to attend to.When we started route marches,for instance,and our feet were blistered and sore,as they often were at first,you would have thought that they were his own feet from the trouble he took.Of course,after the march there was always an inspection of feet.That is the routine.But with him it was no mere routine.He came into our rooms,and,if anyone had a sore foot,he would kneel down on the floor and look at it as carefully as if he had been a doctor.Then he would prescribe,and the remedies were ready at hand,being borne by the sergeant.If a blister had to be lanced he would very likely lance it himself there and then,so as to make sure that it was done with a clean needle and that no dirt was allowed to get in.There was no affectation about this,no striving after effect.It was simply that he felt that our feet were pretty important,and that he knew that we were pretty careless.So he thought it best at the start to see to the matter himself.Nevertheless,there was in our eyes something almost religious about this care for our feet.It seemed to have a touch of Christ about it,and we loved and honoured him the more.
We knew that we should lose him.For one thing,we knew that he would be promoted.It was our great hope that some day he would command the company.Also we knew that he would be killed.He was so amazingly unselfconscious.For that reason we knew that he would be absolutely fearless.He would be so keen on the job in hand,and so anxious for his men,that he would forget about his own danger.So it proved.He was a captain when we went out to the front.Whenever there was a tiresome job to be done,he was there in charge.If there were any particular part of the line where the shells were falling faster or the bombs dropping more thickly than in other parts,he was in it.It was not that he was conceited and imagined himself indispensable.It was just that he was so keen that the men should do their best,and act worthily of the regiment.He knew that fellows hated turning out at night for fatigue,when they were in a "rest camp."He knew how tiresome the long march there and back and the digging in the dark for an unknown purpose were.He knew that fellows would be inclined to grouse and shirk,so he thought that it was up to him to go and show them that he thought it was a job worth doing.And the fact that he was there put a new complexion on the matter altogether.No one would shirk if he were there.No one would grumble so much,either.What was good enough for him was good enough for us.If it were not too much trouble for him to turn out,it was not too much trouble for us.He knew,too,how trying to the nerves it is to sit in a trench and be shelled.He knew what a temptation there is to move a bit farther down the trenchand herd together in a bunch at what seems the safest end.He knew,too,the folly of it,and that it was not the thing to donot done in the best regiments.So,he went along to see that it did not happen,to see that the men stuck to their posts,and conquered their nerves.And as soon as we saw him,we forgot our own anxiety.It was:"Move a bit farther down,sir.We are all right here;but don't you go exposing of yourself."We didn't matter.We knew it then.We were just the rank and file,bound to take risks.The company would get along all right without us.But the captain,how was the company to get on without him?To see him was to catch his point of view,to forget our personal anxieties,and only to think of the company,and the regiment,and honour.
There was not one of us but would gladly have died for him.We longed for the chance to show him that.We weren't heroes.We never dreamed about the V.C.But to save the captain we would have earned it ten times over,and never have cared a button whether we got it or not.We never got the chance,worse luck.It was all the other way.We were holding some trenches which were about as unhealthy as trenches could be.The Boches were only a few yards away,and were well supplied with trenchmortars.We hadn't got any at that time.Bombs and airtorpedoes were dropping round us all day.Of course,the captain was there.It seemed as if he could not keep away.A torpedo fell into the trench,and buried some of our chaps.The fellows next to them ran to dig them out.Of course,he was one of the first.Then came another torpedo in the same place.That was the end.
But he lives.Somehow he lives.And we who knew him do not forget.We feel his eyes on us.We still work for that wonderful smile of his.There are not many of the old lot left now,but I think that those who went West have seen him.When they got to the other side I think they were met.Some one said:"Well done,good and faithful servant."And as they knelt before that gracious pierced Figure,I reckon they saw near by the captain's smile.Anyway,in that faith let me die,if death should come my way;and so,I think,shall I die content.