KEY POINTS:
Old soldiers know the drill; they know the dress code: jackets, ties, medals.
So do the two ex-All Blacks who are also celebrities to the coachloads of New Zealanders here in a tiny town called Ypres. We are here for a big morning: the 90th commemoration of what
is often called New Zealand's darkest day, the battle of Passchendaele.
The Prime Minister, Hayley Westenra, a shy bloke called Willie Apiata, VC, were here earlier in the month for the anniversary of a victory in Flanders Fields. But this is the big one, and Fred Allen and Bob Scott are the reluctant stars; when they walk into a room people applaud.
Today, as the dawn breaks over Tyne Cot, the largest war graves cemetery in Europe, they will lay wreaths, while wearing jackets, ties, medals.
It is a long way to come when you are in your 80s, even when you are two sprightly, cheeky gents. Allen is 87. "He's nearly 90," says Scott. Scott is 86 and what you might call frisky.
He says, of that long journey, "you just sit there and count the hours, don't you. He [Allen] gave me a pill".
"To shut him up," says Allen." Did it work?
"Well," says Scott, "I'm not pregnant." This is rugby banter, it is also banter any soldier from any time in history, especially Kiwi soldiers, would be familiar with.
"What a long way we've travelled together," Scott says to Allen. He means the rugby trips for the All Blacks and the army team.
Now these two great mates have come this long way - a way taken, arduously and dangerously for the New Zealand soldiers of World War I - to honour those soldiers.
In just a few hours on that awful morning of October 12, 90 years ago: almost 3000 New Zealanders were killed, wounded, listed as missing in action. And to count their names on the headstones, 520; on the memorial wall, 1179; and the 322 who are "Known Unto God".
At the Menin Gate the night before Allen and Scott again put on the jackets, ties, medals. Here they sound the Last Post, every night, at 8pm.
At a special service at Menin Gate to commemorate the battle on the 12th, Allen and Scott laid a wreath. The card read: To Our Fallen All Blacks, Fred Allen, Bob Scott.
Scott said: "It makes you want to cry, doesn't it?" It did, and so we did. He told me about his dad, who took a bullet on his first day at Gallipoli, came home, couldn't get a war pension and ended up living in a tin shack, in poverty. He died when Scott was 13, another casualty of a war. Allen laid a hand on his old mate's shoulder.
"To see all the New Zealanders here," Scott said, his voice wavering, "it makes you feel tremendous."
They walked up the steps at Menin Gate together, upright as soldiers, and it made you feel tremendously proud to see them.
The next day, at Tyne Cot, you think of the poem, In Flanders Fields: "If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep." Keeping faith means that two elderly gents and coachloads of New Zealanders are here at this cemetery in a far away foreign place very early in the morning.
Now our soldier, Sergeant Stephen Pilkington, sounds the Last Post for those New Zealanders who came this long way. And as the day breaks over Passchendaele, we file out to begin our long journey home, leaving behind those who will still be here in a thousand years, and the tears of more than one old soldier.
