Then having given all necessary information to the artillery Headquarters which had sent them out, they started on the return journey.

But they were seen and fired on.

Desmond might have escaped but for his determined endeavours to bring in the Sergeant, who was the first of them to fall.

A German sniper hidden in a fragment of ruin caught the boy just outside the British line; he fell actually upon the trench.
Desmond had been the leader all through, said Pamela; his Colonel said he was 'the pluckiest, dearest fellow'-- he failed 'in nothing you ever asked him for.' Just such a story as comes home, night after night, and week after week, from the fighting line! Nothing remarkable in it, except, perhaps, the personal quality of the boy who had sacrificed his life.

Arthur Chicksands, with three years of the war behind him, felt that he knew it by heart--could have repeated it, almost in his sleep, and each time with a different name.
'The other lieutenant who was with him,' said Pamela, 'told us he was in splendid spirits the day before; and then at night, just before they started, Desmond was very quiet, and they said to each other that whatever happened that night they never expected to see England again; and each promised the other that the one who survived, if either did, would take messages home.