“He carved just under the name and date, ‘He died for England.’”
“‘He died for England!’ He carved that on Robin’s grave? What did he mean?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Really! What a rum chap he must be!”
“We didn’t know what to do about it, sir. I saw it, and I didn’t like to tell your mother, and nobody likes to interfere with a tombstone, it seems profane-like. So there it is to this day.”
“Thank you, Sam. I’ll think about it.”
“Have you had much pain with your foot, sir?”
Giles laughed, and flicked the horse.
“Oh, nothing to write home about, Sam. I had a touch of fever, you know. I didn’t tell the mater. It was later on that I got this smash of my right foot. It happened at—I’ve forgotten the name; some damned little village on the Flemish border. I was lucky in a way, the shrapnel missed me. It was falling stonework that biffed up my foot. There was a building, a sort of school, I should think. It got blown to smithereens. It was rather a nasty mess-up. I was there for seven hours before they found me—Hullo! I see the mater standing at the gate.”
The horse nearly bolted with the violence of Giles’s waving arms....