Swag on back, Joe tramped sturdily on towards the Downs.
Alf watched him. Then a gate clicked; and Edward Caspar came blundering down the road. Alf in his loneliness was drawn towards him.
"Good evening, father," he said.
The old gentleman blinked vaguely through his spectacles, and answered most courteously,
"Good evening, Mr. Er-um-ah!" and rolled on down the road.
So his own father didn't know him!
Overhead an aeroplane buzzed by. From the coombe came the eternal noise of the hammers as the great camp there took shape. Along Summerdown Road at the end of Rectory Walk a long convoy of Army Service Corps wagons with mule-teams trailed by. A big motor passed him. In it was Stanley Bessemere and three staff-officers with red bands round their caps. They were very pleased with themselves and their cigars. The member for Beachbourne West did not see his supporter. Then there sounded the tramp of martial feet. It was Saturday afternoon. The Old Town Company of Volunteers, middle-aged men for the most part, known to Alf from childhood, was marching by on the way to drill on the Downs. A fierce short man was in charge. Three rough chevrons had been sewn on to his sleeve to mark his rank as sergeant; and he wore a belt tightly buckled about his ample waist. All carried dummy rifles.
"Left-right, left-right," called the sergeant in the voice of a drill-instructor of the Guards. "Mark time in front! Forward! Dressing by your left!"
It was Mr. Pigott.
Alf's eyes followed the little party up the road. Then they fell on his home covered with ampelopsis just beginning to turn. His mother was at the window, looking at him. Whether it was that the glass distorted her face, or that his own vision was clouded, it seemed to Alf that she was mocking him. Then she drew down the blind as though to shut him out—his own mother.