‘If you can’t, I will go and see. You just sit here and wait for me.’
She sprang up and ran across the grass, swift and sweet of limb. Soon she was in the
jackfruit tree, crawling along the projecting branch. A warm wind brought little eddies of
dust along the road. Summer was in the air..

‘I’ve found it!’ she cried. ‘I’ve found something!’ And now, barefoot, she ran breathlessly towards him, in her outstretched hand a rusty
old medal.
He took it from her and turned it over on his palm.
‘Is it the Iron Cross?’ she asked eagerly.
‘Yes’, he said, ‘this is it.’
‘Now I know why you came. You wanted to see if it was still in the tree.’
‘You may be right. I’m not really sure why I came. But you can keep the Cross. You
found it, after all.’
‘No, you keep it. It’s yours.’
‘But it could have remained in the tree for another twenty-five years if you hadn’t
climbed up to look for it.’
‘But if you hadn’t come back again....’
‘On the right day, at the right time, and with the right person’, he said, getting up and
placing the medal in her hands. ‘It wasn’t the Cross I came for. It was my youth.’
She didn’t understand that, but she walked with him to the gate and stood there gazing