On a grave adjoining was a cheap gilt vase with flowers, English flowers, faded and dying. I looked at the cross. One of the Coldstream Guards lay there killed in action six weeks before. I turned up the black-edged envelope on the vase, and read the badly spelt message, "From his broken-hearted wife and loving little son Tommy."
We gazed at it for a moment in silence. Then Pryor spoke. "I think we'll go back," he said, and there was a strained note in his voice; it seemed as if he wanted to hide something.
On our way out to the road we stopped for a moment and gazed through the shattered window of Dead Cow Cottage. The room into which we looked was neatly furnished. A round table with a flower vase on it stood on the floor, a number of chairs in their proper position were near the wall, a clock and two photos, one of an elderly man with a heavy beard, the other of a frail, delicate woman, were on the mantlepiece. The pendulum of the clock hung idle; it must have ceased going for quite a long time. As if to heighten a picture of absolute comfort a cat sat on the floor washing itself.
"Where will the people be?" I asked.
"I don't know," answered Pryor. "Those chairs will be useful in our dug-out. Shall we take them?"
We took one apiece, and with chair on our head and jar in hand we walked towards the trenches. The sun was out, and it was now very hot. We sweated. My face became like a wet sponge squeezed in the hand; Pryor's face was very red.
"We'll have a rest," he said, and laying down the jar he placed his chair in the road and sat on it. I did the same.
"You know Omar?" he asked.
"In my calf-age I doated on him," I answered.
"What's the calf-age?"