I could not thank him; nor can I here. How can a man speak for the mother of an only child, whose grave he was to see with her eyes as well as with his own, so that one day he might tell her all? Without a car, in fine, the thing was impossible. There are no thanks for actions such as this: none that words do not belittle. A day was fixed, ten days ahead; this gave me time to write to the boy's mother, and gave her time to send direct to Ypres all the bulbs and plants that she could get, to make her child's bed as gay that spring as he himself had been all the days they were together.
And yet--and yet--_was_ it his grave that had been found? _Was_ the evidence as good as it seemed? I was going all the way to Ypres on the strength of that local evidence only. If I could but have taken one or other of those two men who were there when it happened in 1915! But one of them was away on leave, his three weeks not nearly up; the other, the bandsman who knew most of all, might or might not be with the Battalion; but the Battalion itself was still away. I found that out for certain on the morning of the day before I was to start. They were still resting many kilometres back. I had no means of getting to them, even if I had had the right sort of desire; but the fact was that everything had come about so beautifully without one move of mine, that I was quite consciously content to drift in the current of an unfathomable influence.
That afternoon there came to my hut, for no particular reason that he ever told me, a man I had not met before. He was the Senior Chaplain of the boy's Division. We made friends, by what steps I cannot remember, but I must have told him where I was going next day. He was interested. I told him the whole thing. He said: 'But surely there must be somebody in the Battalion that you could take with you, to identify the place?' I told him there was such a man, a bandsman, but the Battalion was away resting and I was not sure but that the man himself was on leave. Said the Chaplain: 'I can find out. I know where they are. I can get them on the telephone. If you don't hear from me again, go round their way in the morning when you get the car. It's ten kilometres in the wrong direction, but it may be worth your while.'