McKay's business was with the dead. The weather-faded husk lay there amid dry leaves promising some day to harmonise with the scheme of things.
Mice had cleaned the bony cage under the uniform of a British aviator. Mice gnaw the shed antlers of deer. And other bones.
The pockets were full of papers. McKay read some of them. Afterward he took from the bones of the hand two rings, a wrist-watch, a whistle which still hung by a short chain and a round object attached to a metal ring like a sleigh-bell.
There was a hollow just beyond, made once in time of flood by some ancient mountain torrent long dry, and no longer to be feared.
The human wreckage barely held together, but it was light; and McKay covered it with a foot of deep green moss, and made a cairn above it out of glacial stones from the watercourse. And on the huge beech that tented it he cut a cross with his trench-knife, making the incision deep, so that it glimmered like ivory against the silvery bark of the great tree. Under this sacred symbol he carved: "SIR W. BLINT, BART."
Below this he cut a deep, white oblong in the bark, and with a coal from the burned airplane he wrote: "THIS IS THE BEGINNING, NOT THE END. THIS ENGLISHMAN STILL CARRIES ON!"
He stood at salute for a full minute. Then turned, dropped to his knees, and began another thorough search among the debris and dead leaves.
"Hello, Yellow-hair!"
She had been watching his approach from where she was seated balanced on the stream's edge, with both legs in the water to the knees.
He came up and dropped down beside her on the moss.
"A dead airman in Les Errues," he said quietly, "a Britisher. I put away what remained of him. The Huns may dig him up: some animals do such things."
"Where did you find him, Kay?" she asked quietly.
"A quarter of a mile down-stream. He lay on the west slope. He had fallen clear, but there was not much left of his machine."
"How long has he lain there in this forest?"
"A year--to judge. Also the last entry in his diary bears this out. They got him through the head, and his belt gave way or was not fastened.--Anyway he came down stone dead and quite clear of his machine. His name was Blint--Sir W. Blint, Bart.... Lie back on the moss and let your bruised feet hang in the pool.... Here--this way --rest that yellow head of yours against my knees. ... Are you snug?"
"Yes."
"Hold out your hands. These were his trinkets."