To the Sapper there occurred suddenly those lines of Kipling,
"For there is neither East nor West, border nor breed nor birth,
When two strong men come face to face though they come from
the ends of the earth."
He knew now; he realised the man beside him was a German; he knew that the sentence of death was very near. What the clue was that had given the man away he hardly thought about—in fact, he hardly cared. All he knew was that death was waiting for the man beside him, and that his hands were steady as a rock.
Quietly Staunton leant forward and undid Jesson's mackintosh. Then he sat back and with his finger he pointed at a spot above his left breast-pocket. "You have never been out to the front, you say; your coat is a new one by Jones & Jones; and yet—until recently—you have been wearing the ribbon of a medal. What medal, Jesson, what medal? It shows up, that clean patch in the light. John Brinton went to Jones & Jones; and John Brinton had a Military Cross."
For a full minute the two men looked into one another's eyes—deep down, and read the things that are written underneath, be a man English or German. Then suddenly Jesson smiled slightly and spoke.
"You are a clever man, Major Staunton. When will the rifle practice take place?"
* * * * * *
Thus it ended, the play of which John Brinton's disappearance formed the prologue. But before the curtain rang down on the epilogue the German told them one or two little things: that John Brinton was alive and well; that the existence of Ginger Stretton, to whom he had alluded so glibly, had only become known to him from a letter in Brinton's coat; that the peculiarities of pimple-faced Charlie had been forced on him by his guide before they met the Sapper.
"In fact," as the Adjutant remarked, "the fellow was almost too good a sportsman to——" But that's the epilogue.
A file of men; a watery sun just starting its day's work; a raw, chilly morning. In front—a man: a man with a white disc of paper pinned over the heart.