Chapter XIV

A little time after the suicide of Jean we found ourselves in a position to attempt the recapture of Lang-Son. We went forward cautiously, doing at most ten kilometres a day. Then even at the end of a day's march we were in fit condition for a battle, in case the enemy elected to attack us in the evening or during the night. As we again went forward our spirits rose. We were extremely glad to have done with the constant retirement in front of the enemy; of all things in the world the most disheartening is a withdrawal after a defeat. A victory means hard work, and a pursuit harder, but a retreat is the hardest of all. I am not speaking of the glory of victory or the disgrace of defeat. Like most soldiers I think only of my private troubles and the troubles of my comrades, and I can assure the reader that, when a battalion is falling back on the base, supplies are bad and insufficient, anxiety on the part of all is heart-breaking, an attack in force is always to be expected, and no one can safely say that those who have beaten his side once may not do so again and more decisively. Even in a pursuit, when the rations are short, one feels that the enemy is suffering more than himself, and the thought that the battalion is pressing on their rear, giving them no peace or ease or quietness, adds a zest to the bad and scanty food which makes it palatable and satisfying. Let no one run away with the idea that we simple soldiers did not feel the sting of defeat--indeed, we felt it, and sorely too--but while one can forgive himself for a disaster, he finds it very hard to forgive the enemy for following it up. It is bad enough to be driven off a stricken field; it is infinitely worse to be harassed afterwards. War is like gambling: if you win first, even though you lose afterwards, you like to keep on playing the game; but if you lose in the beginning, you will at once imagine that the game is not worth the candle. The young soldier who in his first battle tastes the bitterness of defeat and endures the hardships of the hurried march, the wakeful rest under arms, the wretched food, the dirt and worse than dirt, the continual strain upon the nerves, and all things else which are the portion of the conquered, will see war divested of all its seeming glory; his voice at least will never be for war.

The Black Flags and their allies, the Chinese regulars, gave us very little trouble on our march towards Lang-Son. What little fighting did take place on the way cannot be described by me, as my battalion had nothing to do with it. Annamite tirailleurs with some French soldiers and legionaries formed the first line of the advance. They easily overcame all the opposition offered to them; it was only when the grand assault in force had to be made that we others came into the fighting line. While advancing rations again were both good and sufficient; occasionally too we got an allowance of wine or brandy, and these extra rations pleased us very much, for it is wonderfully easy to make soldiers happy. Our guards and pickets were just as well set and kept as ever--our officers were taking no risks--and God help the man of ours who slept at his post. We acquiesed cheerfully in this; and in any case we were so accustomed to exact discipline and perfect precautions against surprise that constant guard and picket-mounting seemed as natural as getting one's morning coffee or evening soup. Since we did not march much any day there was always a fairly long time in camp, and when we entered camp in the evening, the men who had been up the night before lay down and rested while the others, who had had, thanks to their comrades' watchfulness, a good night's rest, lit the fires and cooked the evening meal and performed all the other duties that soldiers have to do in the field. This had a good effect upon all; it was just as if one man said to another: "You watched last night while I slept in safety, I will now work while you rest in comfort and wait for your soup." The officers, I am sure, noted this and were glad: anything that makes soldiers better comrades tends also to make them better fighting men.

At last the day came when we were within striking distance of the enemy. All ranks were satisfied. We knew that very soon the disgrace of the last action would be wiped away, and we in the ranks were just as eager to clean the slate as our officers. I do not think that many were thinking of gaining promotion or distinction in the fight. The important thing was to show to all the world, or at least to that part of it which was interested in the campaign, that our reverse was but an accident of war and its effects only temporary. Again, we all desired satisfaction for the torments and annoyances of the retreat; these were too recent to be easily forgotten.

The battle was begun, as usual, by the artillery. They, however, were not long the only men engaged, for very soon after the cannonade had begun the long lines of infantry were extended to right and left. My company was in the right attack, and we went gaily forward in skirmishing order until a man or two fell. Then we opened fire at a pretty long range at the place where the cloud of smoke told us that our friends the enemy lay. This firing did not delay the advance. On the contrary, it hastened it, for now we fired and ran forward, fired again and made another dash towards the front. Indeed, our officers and sergeants had a good deal of work to keep us from going along too quickly, and in the end we corporals were commanded to cease firing and to devote our attention exclusively to keeping our squads well in hand, so that the line might advance evenly and the men be brought up in sound wind and condition to the point where the bayonets would be fixed for the final charge. Of course, I know you will say that the corporals should have been doing this from the very outset, but it is very hard for a man to carry a rifle and cartridges without making some use of them. Why, I have seen officers, and those of high rank too, take the rifle of a dead man and half-a-dozen cartridges from his pouch in order to have the satisfaction of firing a few shots at the enemy. It is human nature, or rather the nature of soldiers in a fight; one likes to feel that he is doing something on his own account to help his comrades and to hurt the foe.

Well, the officers and the sub-officers worked well together, and the men, to give them their due, obeyed orders willingly, especially when the excitement of the first firing had passed away and they had settled down to the steady work of the advance. When we came within about four hundred yards of the entrenchments the rushes succeeded one another more rapidly, and men went a greater distance between shots. Thus we gradually approached, until finally we were all ordered to lie down and fix bayonets. As we did so the supports joined the fighting line--they were somewhat blown with the last race forward--and so we lay about eighty yards or less from the enemy's position, firing as quickly as possible. The Chinese regulars and the Black Flags were not remiss either in their volleys. A hail of bullets crossed the zone between us, but their fire slowly slackened, especially as a very storm of shells was falling towards their rear. Their supports, we saw, could not easily come up. At length the guns in our rear ceased shelling the position; at the same time the fire had greatly diminished in front. The commandant saw that the time had come, and at the sound of the charge we sprang up, ran at the regulation _pas gymnastique_ towards the trenches, and, when about twenty yards away, rushed at the top of our speed, with the usual charging cry of "Kill, kill," at the fortifications, which had been already so badly damaged by the guns. In a few seconds we were in and using the bayonet with deadly earnestness and a grim determination to wash away in blood the memory of our recent defeat. The Black Flags flung down their weapons and ran out at the back of the entrenchments, but the Chinese regulars fought very well indeed. Well as the Chinese fought they could not long stand up against us. I have already mentioned that they are very light; indeed, I doubt if the average weight is much more than seven stone and a half. Then they can stand bayoneting without shrinking, but they are by no means quick in using the bayonet themselves; again, if a Chinaman gets you on the ground he will drive his weapon home six or seven times more than are needed, and will never notice your comrade coming along, quietly, with lowered head and levelled bayonet to attack. It seems to me that the Chinese go into a fight with something ugly to foreigners to meet, but altogether unlike what we Europeans call courage; they just go in, they kill, they are killed, and that is all there is about it. Yet they are not cowards; if they are, why did they not run like the Black Flags? And they will charge wounded men with spirit, if I may use the word in that connection; and with just as much steady calmness they will await the onset of the foreign devils when they rush the mound, get into the ditch and slay, and, not yet slaked with blood, rush out at the rear of the entrenchments with bloody bayonets, and loot and murder and rapine in their minds.

We got in, and in a few moments not a man was left standing up in the trenches. We looked around. What was the next thing to do? "No. 1 Company, remain here," shouted the commandant as he tried to staunch the blood that ran down the left side of his face from an ugly sabre slash on the temple; "the other companies advance." We three companies got out at the rear of the field fortifications and awaited orders again. "Go up that hill, captain"--this to my captain from the commandant--"and help the soldiers of the line to carry it." "Yes, my commandant," said the captain. We turned towards the right and looked at the little hill. It was about three hundred yards only from level ground to crest; the top was fortified, but only slightly; the soldiers of the line were half-way up on their side, but they were meeting with a very gallant resistance. The rifles above showed no signs of slackening; a heavy, dense smoke covered the crest of the hill; midway down you saw the spirts of flame and little smoke clouds where the French were going up. That smoke quickly disappeared, for the men never fired twice in the same spot. We ran at first up the hill, and were not noticed; very soon we went more easily, as the hill grew steeper and the rifles above began to pay us attention. Then we fired upwards in return, but our bayonets were fixed, and we knew very well that in these alone lay any chance of success. How could we hit men above us whom we could not see? It was impossible, but we could, and did, send bullets so near their heads that aiming down was almost as fruitless for them as aiming up was for the soldiers of the line and ourselves.

As we went along an officer ran up almost to the top, waving his sword, and crying out to the men to follow. We went a little more quickly. Just as he reached a point about ten paces from the outer face of the entrenchments he fell, shot through the heart. A great cry arose from us; we sprang up, disregarding all cover, and madly raced for the summit of the little hill. Volley after volley was fired at us, but with little damage. Take my word for it, when the Asiatic sees the European charging with bayonet on rifle-barrel his aim is not quite so good as usual, and in any case his best is not much. So we rushed, and when we came to the little fortification we had small difficulty in getting in; by that time the French soldiers of the line had crowned the height on their side and were over the entrenchments. We were almost shoved back by the fugitives running from the Frenchmen, but we steadied ourselves and gave them the bayonet, until at last they were all down, and the soldiers of the line and the legionaries alone stood facing one another on the little hill with ugly curses and bloody steel. Not that they cursed us or we them; only when you are using the bayonet, and for a while afterwards, your language is a real reflex of your thoughts.

It was the Frenchmen who really carried the hill; we had only come in towards the end to their assistance. So we left them on the ground that they had so gallantly won, and, going down the side nearest the remnants of our opponents, we looked for more work, more excitement, more glory, and more revenge. And we found them all very soon.

We had scarcely reached the bottom of the hill when a crowd of Chinese regulars, with some Black Flags who had not run away, charged us with loud cries and imprecations. We met them fairly and squarely, and pushed them at the point of the bayonet a few yards back. They were reinforced, and by sheer weight of numbers made us for a time give way. Our officers fought like devils; truth to tell, though we did not like them, we could not help admiring their courage in a fight. The captain was down, so was the sub-lieutenant, the lieutenant had been wounded at the beginning of the battle; the one sergeant who was left took up the command and led us back from a short retreat in an ugly rush against the enemy. I saw a Black Flag carrying a standard in his left hand, while he cut all around at our fellows with the sword in his right. I determined to have that flag, or at least to make a bold try for it, and went with levelled bayonet at the barbarian. He cut down a man of ours as I came, and had not time to parry my thrust with his sword, and failed to do so with the staff of the banner. He took the point fairly in the left side, and I had only just time to get my weapon back when he delivered a furious slash at my head. Receiving this on the middle of the rifle-barrel I thrust a second time, and sent him fairly to the ground. Reversing my rifle--that is, holding it at the left side instead of the right--I stabbed straight down, and pinned his right hand to the ground. Pressing then on the rifle with my left hand, so that he could not free his sword arm, I plucked away the banner with my right. Nicholas at the time shouted out: "Look out, corporal, look out." And, looking up, I saw half-a-dozen Black Flags coming straight at me. I flung the banner on the ground, pulled my bayonet out of the savage's hand, and, just in time, got into a posture of defence. The first man I stopped with a lunge in the face just between the eyes, but the others would have killed me were it not that now the squad came to my assistance. Nicholas and the others soon finished the half-dozen who had attacked me, but others came up too, and very soon about a dozen of us were desperately resisting a desperate attack. They outnumbered us by about four to one, but we were heavier, steadier, and, above all, quicker with the bayonet. All the same, man after man of ours went down till half our number lay dead or dying on the ground. Luckily, Le Grand noticed our difficulty and, calling together six or eight men of his own squad, came to our assistance. Le Grand and his comrades took the Black Flags in the flank; the new assailants overwhelmed them; they gave way sullenly at first, but in the end broke and fled, leaving more than half their number on the field. I was happy in retaining the banner, but I almost at once learned how dear that banner was to me. A cry from Le Grand made me turn round, and I saw Nicholas lying on the ground and a wounded Black Flag cutting at him with a sabre, while the poor Russian did his best to ward off the blows with his hands. As I looked, a Spaniard of Le Grand's squad drove his bayonet up to the rifle-muzzle three times in quick succession into the body of the wounded savage who was trying to kill our good comrade. I ran to Nicholas and, laying down rifle and captured flag, asked him how he felt, was he badly wounded, and without waiting for an answer began to bind his wounded arms and hands. He shook his head sadly.

"It is no use, my comrade; I have got worse than that."

Indeed he had, for his left side was torn open. Nicholas nodded his head towards a dead Black Flag, and we saw at once the weapon that had inflicted so horrible a wound. It was shaped somewhat like a bill-hook, but could be used for thrusting as well as cutting, about four inches of the end being shaped like a broad-bladed knife, the remainder of the steel rather resembling a narrow-bladed hatchet. The poor Russian, in spite of the severe wound, had managed to kill his enemy. I am glad he did so, for, had the barbarian been only wounded, I should have been sorely tempted to finish the work, and though one may kill a helpless man without pity when "seeing red" or to avenge a friend, yet afterwards the thought of such slaughter is unpleasant. After some time we stopped the bleeding, and were glad to be able to give him a good long drink, and then to refill his own water bottle with the few drops still remaining in the bottoms of ours. We left him only when we had to rejoin the company. The sergeant who now commanded it asked me gruffly where I had been. I showed him the captured banner, and in a few words told of the desperate fight made by the Black Flags to regain it. He seemed satisfied, and asked how many men I had lost.

"Nine," I replied.

He counted us, and said: "Nine lost and nine left; that is rather serious; a banner is not worth so many men."

But you may be sure that it would have been worth a whole section in the sergeant's eyes, had he taken it.

There was little more fighting to be done that day. All along the line the French had been successful, and already linesmen, chasseurs, zouaves, legionaries, and tirailleurs were bivouacking in Lang-Son. My battalion searched out its wounded and brought them to an appointed spot; you may be sure that poor Nicholas was carried as gently as possible to the place. I went back for him before I thought of looking for anyone else, even an officer. He was lying quietly where we had left him, and I found that already he had drunk all the water in the bottle. Luckily, as I was going back, I passed the dead body of a white officer of our opponents; he was dressed in a yellow tunic and trousers, with tan boots; his white helmet lay a foot or so from his head; a heavy, fair moustache curled outwards on both cheeks; his jaw had fallen, and his wide-open blue eyes were staring upwards at the sky; at least a dozen gashes showed red upon the body, and a bloody sword in one hand, an empty revolver in the other, were evidence that his death had been amply paid for. A white man fights well when he knows that there is no quarter for him. Luckily, as I have said, I came across this body, for slung round the right shoulder and resting at the left hip was a leather bottle. I took this, and was glad to find that it was more than half full of brandy and water.

"A share, corporal," said a comrade.

"No," I answered; "all for Nicholas."

"Pardon me, corporal; I forgot."

Nicholas thanked me with a glance and a nod. With some rifles and a couple of greatcoats we made a fairly good litter, and bore him to the quarter where the surgeons were working in their shirt sleeves. There we left him with the attendants and went out to bring in others. When I was leaving the hospital, if I may call it so, for the last time, as every wounded man had been brought in, Nicholas beckoned to me. I went over, and he whispered:

"I am dying. I make you the heir to all I possess. Very little--but still all; here it is."

He pressed a small bag into my hand. I said:

"Not at all, good comrade; you will want it when you recover, or at least to get better attendance and a few delicacies in hospital."

"No, my friend; I am leaving _la gamelle_. Take it and I shall be pleased. Try to see me in the morning; to-morrow evening it will be too late."

He forced the little bag again into my hand. I had to take it, but I resolved to see him in the morning and to return it if he were still alive, though I could not help feeling an ugly presentiment that my poor friend was really dying and that the best friend I had in the little world of the Foreign Legion was about to leave me for ever.

After soup had been served out to all the men the sergeant, who still commanded the company, told me that I was wanted at the hospital. I, thinking only of Nicholas, said that I should go thither at once.

"Do you know, corporal," said he, "where it is?"

"Certainly, yes," I answered. "Did I not help to bring many wounded there to-day?"

"Of whom are you thinking?" he asked.

"Nicholas, the prince, you understand. Do you not remember Three Fountains?"

"Very well--too well, indeed," the sergeant replied; "but it is not the Russian who desires to see you, it is the captain." Calling to a hospital attendant passing at the time he inquired if the man were going to the officers' hospital. He was not going there, but would pass it on his way to his own destination.

"Go with him," said the sergeant to me; "he will show you the place. Ask for our captain."

I went away with the hospital orderly, and was shown the officers' hospital quarters by him. On giving name, company, and battalion--they saw my rank upon my sleeve--I was told to wait until the surgeon-in-charge could be told that I wished to see a patient. Very soon the surgeon came. He asked me quite abruptly whom I desired to see. I told him with military directness, but respectfully, and he said that I might be brought to where the captain lay. I went there with an orderly. The captain had a wound on the right arm not of much account; it certainly did not keep him in hospital, but, as he had been knocked down and stunned by a blow of a musket-butt on the left temple, the surgeons would, and did, detain him for awhile. Several times while I was with him he put his hands to his head and swore a little. But, of course, that was none of my business. He asked me about the banner I had taken--"not, you must remember," said he, "that that was very useful or very creditable."

I told the story, and especially laid stress on the facts that poor Nicholas had warned me of the first attack and that he was now dying in the simple soldiers' hospital.

"You are sorry?" he queried.

"Very; he was my good comrade."

"Had he much money?"

"He gave me all." And I showed the little bag.

"How much?"

I counted, and replied:

"One thousand four hundred and fifty francs, twenty or thirty piastres."

"You are rich."

"My captain, he will share with me if he lives, and if he dies I am the poorer by a friend."

"Pouf! a sergeant does not want friends amongst the simple soldiers."

"No, my captain, nor enemies; but I am not a sergeant."

"You are; the commandant will announce it to-morrow. He was with me an hour ago."

"Thanks, my captain; I did not see a ghost this time."

"Ah, you remember! What made you look so pale that day?" I told him, and his only remark was:

"It might have frightened a man, and you are only a boy. How old are you?"

"Oh, in truth," I said, "not yet seventeen."

"But you are over eighteen in the records."

"That, my captain, is my official age."

"Very well, very well; it has nothing to do with me."

After awhile the captain said:

"Who was Nicholas? What was he?"

I answered truly that I did not know--that nobody knew--that he had often plenty of money, and was a good comrade.

"We could not fail to see, my captain," I went on, "that he had been in a high position once; there is, indeed, a story that he commanded a company of Russian guards at Plevna, but no one knows with certainty. He did not tell, and we did not like to inquire." Then I asked the captain for permission to leave the company for half-an-hour in the morning.

"Why do you ask that?"

"I want to see Nicholas; he will be disappointed if I do not go to see him."

"Perhaps he will be dead."

"I think not so."

"Perhaps he will ask for his money."

"I mean to offer it to him."

The captain smiled, and said:

"You are a strange legionary; you do not care for money."

"On the contrary, my captain, I do like money and what it buys; but Nicholas is my friend."

"You may go; stay away an hour if you like. Tell the sergeant that I, the captain, have given you permission."

"A thousand thanks, my captain."

After some further questions and answers the captain ordered me to go. I saluted, and was just turning to leave when he called me back. Pointing to a cigar-box on a rickety table, he told me to give it to him. I did so. He opened it and took out two cigars.

"Give that to monsieur the prince, with his captain's compliments, and keep this for yourself. Tell him, sergeant"--he laid stress upon the word--"that I am sorry for his misfortune and proud to have had such a man in my company. Say to him exactly what I have said to you."

"Yes, my captain," I answered, saluted again, thanked him for the cigars, and went away. Let me say here, though it does somewhat anticipate events, that the captain was my good friend afterwards, and more than once broke my fall when I got into trouble. The death of Nicholas deprived me of a good comrade. By it I gained a friend in a higher position, but I would any day have surrendered the captain's good will if by so doing I could regain the companion of the barrack-room and the canteen.

When I got back to the company, I reported my return at once to the sergeant. He asked me what the captain wanted me for, and I told him that the officer had questioned me about the affair of the banner and about Nicholas. I said nothing of the money or the cigars.

"Did he tell you anything?"

"Yes; he said that I was to be sergeant to-morrow."

"Indeed," said the sergeant.

"I suppose, sergeant, I may thank you for a favourable report about to-day's fight."

"I only told the truth," said the sergeant, "and I always liked you when I was corporal of the squad."

Then I told him about the captain's permission to me to absent myself for an hour in the morning so that I might pay a visit to Nicholas.

"You must tell that," he replied, "to the sub-lieutenant in charge; an officer has been sent to us from another company."

"Very well," said I. "Where is he?"

He brought me to the sub-lieutenant's quarters. I told the officer of my permission; he was satisfied. Before I went he asked about the captain's wounds and a few questions of curiosity about Nicholas. I told him all I knew about the captain and almost nothing about my comrade. As I was leaving, the sergeant drew my attention to the fact that I had omitted speaking about my promotion.

"You captured a flag, you say?"

"Yes, sir; and there was a hard fight to retain it."

"And the commandant will promote you sergeant to-morrow?"

"Monsieur le capitaine said so, sir."

"Very good, very good; somebody must be sergeant, I suppose, and why not you as well as another? You may withdraw."

As we went away I asked the sergeant if there were any place where I could get a drink of wine or brandy.

"Certainly, yes--if you have money, my comrade."

"Come then," I said, "let us go there together."

He brought me to a small hut, where I had to pay a stiff price for his brandy and my wine, and when he saw that I had plenty of money he unbent and congratulated me more than once on my promotion. He ended by borrowing twenty francs, which I willingly lent; of course, he forgot to repay me.

The next morning on parade the commandant praised me a little and ordered me to take over the duties of No. 1 section. The sergeant who had borrowed the twenty francs from me the day before was appointed sergeant-major, and the corporal of a squad of No. 2 was made sergeant of that section. When we were dismissed, I reminded the new sergeant-major of my permission to visit Nicholas. He remembered the money I had shown the evening before and promptly brought me up before the sub-lieutenant in temporary command of the company, in order that I might report my intention of taking advantage of the leave given me by the captain. The sub-lieutenant offered no opposition. As I was going away the sergeant-major, no doubt remembering that I was comparatively rich--that is, rich for a sergeant of legionaries--told me that he would take care that my section was all right during my absence.

"Many thanks," I said; "perhaps monsieur le sergent-majeur would wet the promotion in the evening."

"But yes, but yes, with pleasure. Do not hurry, you will be back in good time; sometimes the sergeant-major is a better friend than a simple sub-lieutenant." He was right, and we both knew it.

I went across as quickly as I could to where the field hospital for the wounded of the right attack lay. I had little difficulty in finding Nicholas; he visibly brightened at seeing me, and, when I tried to shake hands, he put his finger on my sleeve, where the single gold chevron was that a sergeant of a section wears.

"It pleases me," he whispered; "but don't be too ambitious, other men have lost all through ambition."

I said nothing. I was glad that he was pleased, but I cannot tell how sorry to see him weak, worn out, and, as one may say, with the dews of death already gathering on his forehead. He could not speak, even in a low tone, he could only whisper; I had to bend down to catch his words.

He asked about a few men of the squad, and I told him who were dead, who dying, who still in the ranks. He was anxious too about Le Grand, and was very glad to hear that the latter had gone through the fight without even a scratch, though he had had one narrow escape.

"Le Grand," I said to Nicholas, "had to take a dead man's helmet."

"Why, why?" he eagerly whispered.

"Because his own was cut in two by a sabre-stroke. Had the cut been downwards, Le Grand would be alongside you to-day."

"I am glad he escaped so well; I like him."

After a little more conversation I was told that my visit must end.

"Who is chiefly with you, Nicholas?" I asked.

He nodded towards an attendant. I went to this man and gave him a hundred francs.

"Be good to my comrade," I said.

"Yes; yes," he replied, astonished at such a gift from a mere sergeant of legionaries; "I will do all I can, but that, alas! is little."

"I know," I answered, "there is no hope; but smooth the way for him as well as you can to Eternity."

He promised with many oaths that he would do so. I don't know whether or not he kept his word, but I really do think that the unexpected money, and still more the unexpected amount of it, made him a good friend to the last to my poor comrade.

So Nicholas the Russian passes out of my story. I never saw him afterwards, for that evening my company left Lang-Son for an outside station about ten miles from the place. Some time afterwards a legionary of No. 2 Company told me that he had been in hospital with Nicholas, and that the Russian had died about four o'clock in the afternoon of the day I visited him, and was buried in the evening of the same day. He is out of the turmoil of the world now, and I wonder, had he in early youth understood life as he learned it in the Foreign Legion, would he have "played the game" in the same way? One never knows. Perhaps he would have lived and died that wretched nonentity, the respectable member of society--the Pharisee who has neither courage to do evil nor heart to do good--but who lives his life out in constant endeavour to equate God and the devil, to balance, for his own benefit of course, his duty to his fellow-man and his so-called duty to himself; perhaps he unknowingly thought at the end as the Dying Stockrider spoke:

"I've had my share of trouble, and I've done my share of toil,
And life is short, the longest life a span,
I care not now to tarry for the corn or for the oil
Or the wine that maketh glad the heart of man.
For gifts misspent, and chances lost, and resolutions vain
'Tis somewhat late to trouble: this I know--
I would live the same life over if I had to live again,
And the chances are, I go where most men go."

Anyway, whatever he was to others, he was good friend and good comrade to me, and if no one else regrets, I regret.

_Amice mi, vale, vale, vale!_