There was nothing to do but to take his helmet and go.  At the edge of the hill, just before he plunged down the path, he stopped and glanced back at the garden lying flattened in the sun; the three stone arches, the dahlias and marigolds, the glistening boxwood wall.  He had left something on the hilltop which he would never find again.

The next afternoon Claude and his sergeant set off for the front.  They had been told at Headquarters that they could shorten their route by following the big road to the military cemetery, and then turning to the left.  It was not advisable to go the latter half of the way before nightfall, so they took their time through the belt of straggling crops and hayfields.

When they struck the road they came upon a big Highlander sitting in the end of an empty supply wagon, smoking a pipe and rubbing the dried mud out of his kilts.  The horses were munching in their nose-bags, and the driver had disappeared.  The Americans hadn’t happened to meet with any Highlanders before, and were curious.  This one must be a good fighter, they thought; a brawny giant with a bulldog jaw, and a face as red and knobby as his knees.  More because he admired the looks of the man than because he needed information, Hicks went up and asked him if he had noticed a military cemetery on the road back.  The Kilt nodded.

“About how far back would you say it was?”

“I wouldn’t say at all.  I take no account of their kilometers,” he replied dryly, rubbing away at his skirt as if he had it in a washtub.

“Well, about how long will it take us to walk it?”

“That I couldn’t say.  A Scotsman would do it in an hour.”

“I guess a Yankee can do it as quick as a Scotchman, can’t be?” Hicks asked jovially.

“That I couldn’t say.  You’ve been four years gettin’ this far, I know verra well.”

Hicks blinked as if he had been hit.  “Oh, if that’s the way you talk—­”

“That’s the way I do,” said the other sourly.

Claude put out a warning hand.  “Come on, Hicks.  You’ll get nothing by it.”  They went up the road very much disconcerted.  Hicks kept thinking of things he might have said.  When he was angry, the Sergeant’s forehead puffed up and became dark red, like a young baby’s.  “What did you call me off for?” he sputtered.

“I don’t see where you’d have come out in an argument, and you certainly couldn’t have licked him.”

They turned aside at the cemetery to wait until the sun went down.  It was unfenced, unsodded, and a wagon trail ran through the middle, bisecting the square.  On one side were the French graves, with white crosses; on the other side the German graves, with black crosses.  Poppies and cornflower ran over them.  The Americans strolled about, reading the names.  Here and there the soldier’s photograph was nailed upon his cross, left by some comrade to perpetuate his memory a little longer.