The Soul of a Regiment | Page 7

watching, listening crowd followed suit; there was a sudden rustling as
a sea of hats and helmets rose and descended. The band of four, that
had stood in stolid silence while all this was happening, realized that
the moment was auspicious to play their other tune.
They had only one other, and they had played "The Campbells are
coming" across the polo field; so up went the fifes, "Bang!" went the
drum, and, "God Save Our Gracious Queen" wailed the three in concert,
while strong men hid their faces and women sobbed.
Grogram whipped his hand up to the answering salute, faced the crowd
in front of him for six palpitating seconds, and fell dead at the Sirdar's
feet.
And so they buried him; his shroud was the flag that had flown above
the Sirdar at that ever-memorable match, and his soul went into the
regiment.
They began recruiting it again next day round the blood-soaked colors
he had carried with him, and the First Egyptian Foot did famously at
the Atbara and Omdurman. They buried him in a hollow square formed
by massed brigades, European and native regiments alternating, and
saw him on his way with twenty-one parting volleys, instead of the
regulation five. His tombstone is a monolith of rough-hewn granite,
tucked away in a quiet corner of the European graveyard at Cairo --
quiet and inconspicuous as Grogram always was -- but the truth is
graven on it in letters two inches deep:

HERE LIES A MAN


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