The road from Saint-Laurent follows the valley, which, in turn, follows the stream. Poplars, tall as church spires, punctuate, indicating the stream’s forward meander. He looks up at a height of shimmering leaves and is dizzied by it. Blinking the glare from his eyes, he recalls the tree stumps along the roads in the north where he had walked by Gabriel’s side. Is this how it once was? Is this what the war took away? In the fields around they are haymaking, the sickles glinting a rhythm. The people in the fields still and straighten, turning to him as he passes. Do they look out for other men returning along this road? He wonders how many times his gait and his coloring have disappointed.

The valley leads him to Saint-Pierre, where, true to the stationmaster’s map, there is a tower framed in yew trees. Washing is suspended in lines across the street and canaries sleep in cages. An old woman, sitting on a doorstep, plucks at sewing and acknowledges him in a language that he doesn’t understand. Otherwise the streets are empty. He sees only old women in these villages.

He follows the road straight through Saint-Pierre to the end of the village, before taking the right fork, where he re-finds the river. Calvaire, Gabriel’s village, is red rooftops and the honey colors of old stone. Its church is a patchwork of ages and architectural theft. Mary, smiling benignly in plasterwork, is preserved behind chicken wire. There are offerings of flowers and pebbles and military buttons around her feet.

He had written a hasty letter to Gabriel from Amiens and told him that he would be here by this afternoon. As Harry looks at the square where the memorial will stand, he wonders if Gabriel has yet received his words. The preparations have already started and a workman is skimming out a rectangle of concrete for what must be the monument’s base. Gabriel has told him that there is to be a platform, lifted on a wall of faced stone and dressed with a wrought-iron fencing, to discourage unseemly shows and livestock. On the square base the names will be carved: NOS MORTS. They are pushing to have it unveiled on the eleventh of November, Gabriel has told him, when there will be trumpets and silence and those returned, and those not to return, will be honored. Three years on from the end of it, it will be solemnized. In six weeks’ time, the memorial will give the square a new perspective. Harry is suddenly aware of the enormity and urgency of Gabriel’s task.