For Nelly, life was just bearable up to five or six o'clock in the evening because of her morning and afternoon visits to the Enquiry Office in D---- Street, where everything that brains and pity could suggest was being done to trace the 'missing'; where sat also that kind, tired woman, at the table which Nelly by now knew so well, with her pitying eyes, and her soft voice, which never grew perfunctory or careless.

'I'm _so_ sorry!--but there's no fresh news.' That had been the evening message; and now the day's hope was over, and the long night had to be got through.
That morning, however, there had been news--a letter from Sarratt's Colonel, enclosing letters from two privates, who had seen Sarratt go over the parapet in the great rush, and one of whom had passed him--wounded--on the ground and tried to stay by him.

But 'Lieutenant Sarratt wouldn't allow it.' 'Never mind me, old chap'-- one witness reported him as saying.

'Get on.

They'll pick me up presently.' And there they had left him, and knew no more.
Several other men were named, who had also seen him fall, but they had not yet been traced.