“Come and have a drink before you start, anyway,” said the O.C.; and he led the way back to the camp and into an enclosure made of bushes and logs in the rear of the mess, where rustic seats and a table had been constructed under the shade of a giant oak.  “It’s rattling here in summer,” he said, “and we have most of our meals out of doors.  Sit down, won’t you?  Orderly!”

“By Jove! you people are comfortable out here,” said Harold.  “Wish I had a job of this sort.”

“Oh, I don’t know, skipper; it would feed you up after a while, I think.  It’s bally lonely in the evening, and we can’t always get a car to town.  It’s a damned nuisance getting out again, too.”  Then, as the orderly brought glasses and a bottle:  “Have a spot.  It’s Haig and Haig, Mackay, and the right, stuff.”

“Jolly good, sir,” said that worthy critically.  “People think because I don’t talk broad Scots I’m no Highlander, but when it comes to the whisky I’ve got a Scottish thirst.  Say when, sir.”

Peter had another because he was warm with the sense of good comradeship, and was warmer still when he climbed into the car ten minutes later.  Life seemed so simple and easy; and he was struck with the cheeriness of his new friends, and the ready welcome to himself and his duty.  He waved to the O.C.  “See you Sunday, sir,” he called, out, “’bout eleven.  You won’t forget to put it in orders, will you?  Cheerio.”

“Let’s go round by the lower road, skipper,” said Mackay.  “We can look in at that toppin’ little pub—­what’s its name, Croix something?—­and besides, the surface is capital down there.”

“And see Marie, eh?  But don’t forget you’ve got a padre aboard.”

“Oh, he’s all right, and if he’s going to be out here, it’s time he knew Marie.”

Graham laughed.  “Carry on,” he said.  “It’s all one to me where we go, skipper.”

He lay back more comfortably than ever, and the big car leaped forward through the forest, ever descending towards the river level.  Soon the trees thinned, and they were skirting ploughed fields.  Presently they ran through a little village, where a German prisoner straightened himself from his work in a garden and saluted.  Then through a wood which suddenly gave a vista of an avenue to a stately house, turreted in the French style, a quarter of a mile away; then over a little stream; then round a couple of corners, past a dreamy old church, and a long immemorial wall, and so out into the straight road along the river.  The sun gleamed on the water, and there were ships in view, a British and a couple of Norwegian tramps, ploughing slowly down to the sea.  On the far bank the level of the land was low, but on this side only some narrow apple-orchards and here and there lush water-meadows separated them from the hills.

The Croix de Guerre stood back from the road in a long garden just where a forest bridle-path wound down through a tiny village to the main road.  Their chauffeur backed the car all but out of sight into this path after they climbed out, and the three of them made for a sidedoor in a high wall.  Harold opened it and walked in.  The pretty trim little garden had a few flowers in bloom, so sheltered was it, and Mackay picked a red rosebud as they walked up the path.