The boy dropped his chin over the speaking-tube.

"Mr. Hinchcliffe, what's her extreme economical radius?"

"Three hundred and forty knots, down to swept bunkers."

"Can do," said Moorshed. "By the way, have her revolutions any bearing on her speed, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"

"None that I can make out yet, Sir."

"Then slow to eight knots. We'll jog down to forty-nine, forty-five, or four about, and three east. That puts us say forty miles from Torbay by nine o'clock to-morrow morning. We'll have to muck about till dusk before we run in and try our luck with the cruisers."

"Yes, Sir. Their picket boats will be panickin' round them all night. It's considered good for the young gentlemen."

"Hallo! War's declared! They're off!" said Moorshed.

He swung 267's head round to get a better view. A few miles to our right the low horizon was spangled with small balls of fire, while nearer ran a procession of tiny cigar ends.

"Red hot! Set 'em alight," said Mr. Pyecroft. "That's the second destroyer flotilla diggin' out for Commander Fassett's reputation."

The smaller lights disappeared; the glare of the destroyers' funnels dwindled even as we watched.

"They're going down Channel with lights out, thus showin' their zeal an' drivin' all watch-officers crazy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll get you your pyjamas, an' you'll turn in," said Pyecroft.

He piloted me to the steel tunnel, where the ham still swung majestically over the swaying table, and dragged out trousers and a coat with a monk's hood, all hewn from one hairy inch-thick board.

"If you fall over in these you'll be drowned. They're lammies. I'll chock you off with a pillow; but sleepin' in a torpedo-boat's what you might call an acquired habit."

I coiled down on an iron-hard horse-hair pillow next the quivering steel wall to acquire that habit. The sea, sliding over 267's skin, worried me with importunate, half-caught confidences. It drummed tackily to gather my attention, coughed, spat, cleared its throat, and, on the eve of that portentous communication, retired up stage as a multitude whispering. Anon, I caught the tramp of armies afoot, the hum of crowded cities awaiting the event, the single sob of a woman, and dry roaring of wild beasts. A dropped shovel clanging on the stokehold floor was, naturally enough, the unbarring of arena gates; our sucking uplift across the crest of some little swell, nothing less than the haling forth of new worlds; our half-turning descent into the hollow of its mate, the abysmal plunge of God-forgotten planets. Through all these phenomena and more—though I ran with wild horses over illimitable plains of rustling grass; though I crouched belly-flat under appalling fires of musketry; though I was Livingstone, painless, and incurious in the grip of his lion—my shut eyes saw the lamp swinging in its gimbals, the irregularly gliding patch of light on the steel ladder, and every elastic shadow in the corners of the frail angle-irons; while my body strove to accommodate itself to the infernal vibration of the machine. At the last I rolled limply on the floor, and woke to real life with a bruised nose and a great call to go on deck at once.

"It's all right," said a voice in my booming ears. "Morgan and Laughton are worse than you!"

I was gripping a rail. Mr. Pyecroft pointed with his foot to two bundles beside a torpedo-tube, which at Weymouth had been a signaller and a most able seaman. "She'd do better in a bigger sea," said Mr. Pyecroft. "This lop is what fetches it up."

The sky behind us whitened as I laboured, and the first dawn drove down the Channel, tipping the wave-tops with a chill glare. To me that round wind which runs before the true day has ever been fortunate and of good omen. It cleared the trouble from my body, and set my soul dancing to 267's heel and toe across the northerly set of the waves—such waves as I had often watched contemptuously from the deck of a ten-thousand-ton liner. They shouldered our little hull sideways and passed, scalloped, and splayed out, toward the coast, carrying our white wake in loops along their hollow backs. In succession we looked down a lead-grey cutting of water for half a clear mile, were flung up on its ridge, beheld the Channel traffic—full-sailed to that fair breeze—all about us, and swung slantwise, light as a bladder, elastic as a basket, into the next furrow. Then the sun found us, struck the wet gray bows to living, leaping opal, the colourless deep to hard sapphire, the many sails to pearl, and the little steam-plume of our escape to an inconstant rainbow.

"A fair day and a fair wind for all, thank God!" said Emanuel Pyecroft, throwing back the cowl-like hood of his blanket coat. His face was pitted with coal-dust and grime, pallid for lack of sleep; but his eyes shone like a gull's.

"I told you you'd see life. Think o' the Pedantic now. Think o' her Number One chasin' the mobilised gobbies round the lower deck flats. Think o' the pore little snotties now bein' washed, fed, and taught, an' the yeoman o' signals with a pink eye wakin' bright 'an brisk to another perishin' day of five-flag hoists. Whereas we shall caulk an' smoke cigarettes, same as the Spanish destroyers did for three weeks after war was declared." He dropped into the wardroom singing:—

If you're going to marry me, marry me, Bill, It's no use muckin' about!

The man at the wheel, uniformed in what had once been a Tam-o'-shanter, a pair of very worn R.M.L.I. trousers rolled up to the knee, and a black sweater, was smoking a cigarette. Moorshed, in a gray Balaclava and a brown mackintosh with a flapping cape, hauled at our supplementary funnel guys, and a thing like a waiter from a Soho restaurant sat at the head of the engine-room ladder exhorting the unseen below. The following wind beat down our smoke and covered all things with an inch-thick layer of stokers, so that eyelids, teeth, and feet gritted in their motions. I began to see that my previous experiences among battleships and cruisers had been altogether beside the mark.

PART II

The wind went down with the sunset— The fog came up with the tide, When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell (bis) With a little Blue Devil inside. "Sink," she said, "or swim," she said, "It's all you will get from me. And that is the finish of him!" she said, And the Egg-shell went to sea.

The wind got up with the morning, And the fog blew off with the rain, When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell And the little Blue Devil again. "Did you swim?" she said. "Did you sink?" she said, And the little Blue Devil replied: "For myself I swam, but I think," he said, "There's somebody sinking outside."

But for the small detail that I was a passenger and a civilian, and might not alter her course, torpedo-boat No. 267 was mine to me all that priceless day. Moorshed, after breakfast—frizzled ham and a devil that Pyecroft made out of sardines, anchovies, and French mustard smashed together with a spanner—showed me his few and simple navigating tools, and took an observation. Morgan, the signaller, let me hold the chamois leathers while he cleaned the searchlight (we seemed to be better equipped with electricity than most of our class), that lived under a bulbous umbrella-cover amidship. Then Pyecroft and Morgan, standing easy, talked together of the King's Service as reformers and revolutionists, so notably, that were I not engaged on this tale I would, for its conclusion, substitute theirs.

I would speak of Hinchcliffe—Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, first-class engine- room artificer, and genius in his line, who was prouder of having taken part in the Hat Crusade in his youth than of all his daring, his skill, and his nickel-steel nerve. I consorted with him for an hour in the packed and dancing engine-room, when Moorshed suggested "whacking her up" to eighteen knots, to see if she would stand it. The floor was ankle-deep in a creamy batter of oil and water; each moving part flicking more oil in zoetrope-circles, and the gauges invisible for their dizzy chattering on the chattering steel bulkhead. Leading stoker Grant, said to be a bigamist, an ox-eyed man smothered in hair, took me to the stokehold and planted me between a searing white furnace and some hell-hot iron plate for fifteen minutes, while I listened to the drone of fans and the worry of the sea without, striving to wrench all that palpitating firepot wide open.

Then I came on deck and watched Moorshed—revolving in his orbit from the canvas bustle and torpedo-tubes aft, by way of engine-room, conning-tower, and wheel, to the doll's house of a foc'sle—learned in experience withheld from me, moved by laws beyond my knowledge, authoritative, entirely adequate, and yet, in heart, a child at his play. I could not take ten steps along the crowded deck but I collided with some body or thing; but he and his satellites swung, passed, and returned on their vocations with the freedom and spaciousness of the well-poised stars.

Even now I can at will recall every tone and gesture, with each dissolving picture inboard or overside—Hinchcliffe's white arm buried to the shoulder in a hornet's nest of spinning machinery; Moorshed's halt and jerk to windward as he looked across the water; Pyecroft's back bent over the Berthon collapsible boat, while he drilled three men in expanding it swiftly; the outflung white water at the foot of a homeward-bound Chinaman not a hundred yards away, and her shadow-slashed, rope-purfled sails bulging sideways like insolent cheeks; the ribbed and pitted coal-dust on our decks, all iridescent under the sun; the first filmy haze that paled the shadows of our funnels about lunch time; the gradual die-down and dulling over of the short, cheery seas; the sea that changed to a swell: the swell that crumbled up and ran allwhither oilily: the triumphant, almost audible roll inward of wandering fog-walls that had been stalking us for two hours, and—welt upon welt, chill as the grave—the drive of the interminable main fog of the Atlantic. We slowed to little more than steerage-way and lay listening. Presently a hand-bellows foghorn jarred like a corncrake, and there rattled out of the mist a big ship literally above us. We could count the rivets in her plates as we scrooped by, and the little drops of dew gathered below them.

"Wonder why they're always barks—always steel—always four-masted—an' never less than two thousand tons. But they are," said Pyecroft. He was out on the turtle-backed bows of her; Moorshed was at the wheel, and another man worked the whistle.

"This fog is the best thing could ha' happened to us," said Moorshed. "It gives us our chance to run in on the quiet.... Hal-lo!"

A cracked bell rang. Clean and sharp (beautifully grained, too), a bowsprit surged over our starboard bow, the bobstay confidentially hooking itself into our forward rail.

I saw Pyecroft's arm fly up; heard at the same moment the severing of the tense rope, the working of the wheel, Moorshed's voice down the tube saying, "Astern a little, please, Mr. Hinchcliffe!" and Pyecroft's cry, "Trawler with her gear down! Look out for our propeller, Sir, or we'll be wrapped up in the rope."

267 surged quickly under my feet, as the pressure of the downward-bearing bobstay was removed. Half-a-dozen men of the foc'sle had already thrown out fenders, and stood by to bear off a just visible bulwark.

Still going astern, we touched slowly, broadside on, to a suggestive crunching of fenders, and I looked into the deck of a Brixham trawler, her crew struck dumb.

"Any luck?" said Moorshed politely.

"Not till we met yeou," was the answer. "The Lard he saved us from they big ships to be spitted by the little wan. Where be'e gwine tu with our fine new bobstay?"

"Yah! You've had time to splice it by now," said Pyecroft with contempt.

"Aie; but we'm all crushed to port like aigs. You was runnin' twenty-seven knots, us reckoned it. Didn't us, Albert?"

"Liker twenty-nine, an' niver no whistle."

"Yes, we always do that. Do you want a tow to Brixham?" said Moorshed.

A great silence fell upon those wet men of the sea.

We lifted a little toward their side, but our silent, quick-breathing crew, braced and strained outboard, bore us off as though we had been a mere picket-boat.

"What for?" said a puzzled voice.

"For love; for nothing. You'll be abed in Brixham by midnight."

"Yiss; but trawl's down."

"No hurry. I'll pass you a line and go ahead. Sing out when you're ready." A rope smacked on their deck with the word; they made it fast; we slid forward, and in ten seconds saw nothing save a few feet of the wire rope running into fog over our stern; but we heard the noise of debate.

"Catch a Brixham trawler letting go of a free tow in a fog," said Moorshed listening.

"But what in the world do you want him for?" I asked.

"Oh, he'll came in handy later."

"Was that your first collision?"

"Yes." I shook hands with him in silence, and our tow hailed us.

"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice rose muffled and wailing. "After us've upped trawl, us'll be glad of a tow. Leave line just slack abaout as 'tis now, and kip a good fine look-out be'ind 'ee."

"There's an accommodatin' blighter for you!" said Pyecroft. "Where does he expect we'll be, with these currents evolutin' like sailormen at the Agricultural Hall?"

I left the bridge to watch the wire-rope at the stern as it drew out and smacked down upon the water. By what instinct or guidance 267 kept it from fouling her languidly flapping propeller, I cannot tell. The fog now thickened and thinned in streaks that bothered the eyes like the glare of intermittent flash-lamps; by turns granting us the vision of a sick sun that leered and fled, or burying all a thousand fathom deep in gulfs of vapours. At no time could we see the trawler though we heard the click of her windlass, the jar of her trawl-beam, and the very flap of the fish on her deck. Forward was Pyecroft with the lead; on the bridge Moorshed pawed a Channel chart; aft sat I, listening to the whole of the British Mercantile Marine (never a keel less) returning to England, and watching the fog-dew run round the bight of the tow back to its mother-fog.

"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war! We'm done with trawl. You can take us home if you know the road."

"Right O!" said Moorshed. "We'll give the fishmonger a run for his money. Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe."

The next few hours completed my education. I saw that I ought to be afraid, but more clearly (this was when a liner hooted down the back of my neck) that any fear which would begin to do justice to the situation would, if yielded to, incapacitate me for the rest of my days. A shadow of spread sails, deeper than the darkening twilight, brooding over us like the wings of Azrael (Pyecroft said she was a Swede), and, miraculously withdrawn, persuaded me that there was a working chance that I should reach the beach—any beach—alive, if not dry; and (this was when an economical tramp laved our port-rail with her condenser water) were I so spared, I vowed I would tell my tale worthily.

Thus we floated in space as souls drift through raw time. Night added herself to the fog, and I laid hold on my limbs jealously, lest they, too, should melt in the general dissolution.

"Where's that prevaricatin' fishmonger?" said Pyecroft, turning a lantern on a scant yard of the gleaming wire-rope that pointed like a stick to my left. "He's doin' some fancy steerin' on his own. No wonder Mr. Hincheliffe is blasphemious. The tow's sheered off to starboard, Sir. He'll fair pull the stern out of us."

Moorshed, invisible, cursed through the megaphone into invisibility.

"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice butted through the fog with the monotonous insistence of a strayed sheep's. "We don't all like the road you'm takin'. 'Tis no road to Brixham. You'll be buckled up under Prawle Point by'mbye."

"Do you pretend to know where you are?" the megaphone roared.

"Iss, I reckon; but there's no pretence to me!"

"O Peter!" said Pyecroft. "Let's hang him at 'is own gaff."

I could not see what followed, but Moorshed said: "Take another man with you. If you lose the tow, you're done. I'll slow her down."

I heard the dinghy splash overboard ere I could cry "Murder!" Heard the rasp of a boat-hook along the wire-rope, and then, as it had been in my ear, Pyecroft's enormous and jubilant bellow astern: "Why, he's here! Right atop of us! The blighter 'as pouched half the tow, like a shark!" A long pause filled with soft Devonian bleatings. Then Pyecroft, solo arpeggie: "Rum? Rum? Rum? Is that all? Come an' try it, uncle."

I lifted my face to where once God's sky had been, and besought The Trues I might not die inarticulate, amid these half-worked miracles, but live at least till my fellow-mortals could be made one-millionth as happy as I was happy. I prayed and I waited, and we went slow—slow as the processes of evolution—till the boat-hook rasped again.

"He's not what you might call a scientific navigator," said Pyecroft, still in the dinghy, but rising like a fairy from a pantomime trap. "The lead's what 'e goes by mostly; rum is what he's come for; an' Brixham is 'is 'ome. Lay on, Mucduff!"

A white whiskered man in a frock-coat—as I live by bread, a frock-coat!— sea-boots, and a comforter crawled over the torpedo-tube into Moorshed's grip and vanished forward.

"'E'll probably 'old three gallon (look sharp with that dinghy!); but 'is nephew, left in charge of the Agatha, wants two bottles command- allowance. You're a tax-payer, Sir. Do you think that excessive?"

"Lead there! Lead!" rang out from forward.

"Didn't I say 'e wouldn't understand compass deviations? Watch him close. It'll be worth it!"

As I neared the bridge I heard the stranger say: "Let me zmell un!" and to his nose was the lead presented by a trained man of the King's Navy.

"I'll tell 'ee where to goo, if yeou'll tell your donkey-man what to du. I'm no hand wi' steam." On these lines we proceeded miraculously, and, under Moorshed's orders—I was the fisherman's Ganymede, even as "M. de C." had served the captain—I found both rum and curacoa in a locker, and mixed them equal bulk in an enamelled iron cup.

"Now we'm just abeam o' where we should be," he said at last, "an' here we'll lay till she lifts. I'd take 'e in for another bottle—and wan for my nevvy; but I reckon yeou'm shart-allowanced for rum. That's nivver no Navy rum yeou'm give me. Knowed 'ee by the smack tu un. Anchor now!"

I was between Pyecroft and Moorshed on the bridge, and heard them spring to vibrating attention at my side. A man with a lead a few feet to port caught the panic through my body, and checked like a wild boar at gaze, for not far away an unmistakable ship's bell was ringing. It ceased, and another began.

"Them!" said Pyecroft. "Anchored!"

"More!" said our pilot, passing me the cup, and I filled it. The trawler astern clattered vehemently on her bell. Pyecroft with a jerk of his arm threw loose the forward three-pounder. The bar of the back-sight was heavily blobbed with dew; the foresight was invisible.

"No—they wouldn't have their picket-boats out in this weather, though they ought to." He returned the barrel to its crotch slowly.

"Be yeou gwine to anchor?" said Macduff, smacking his lips, "or be yeou gwine straight on to Livermead Beach?"

"Tell him what we're driving at. Get it into his head somehow," said Moorshed; and Pyecroft, snatching the cup from me, enfolded the old man with an arm and a mist of wonderful words.

"And if you pull it off," said Moorshed at the last, "I'll give you a fiver."

"Lard! What's fivers to me, young man? My nevvy, he likes 'em; but I do cherish more on fine drink than filthy lucre any day o' God's good weeks. Leave goo my arm, yeou common sailorman! I tall 'ee, gentlemen, I hain't the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule yeou reckon I be. Before the mast I've fared in my time; fisherman I've been since I seed the unsense of sea-dangerin'. Baccy and spirits—yiss, an' cigars too, I've run a plenty. I'm no blind harse or boy to be coaxed with your forty-mile free towin' and rum atop of all. There's none more sober to Brix'am this tide, I don't care who 'tis—than me. I know—I know. Yander'm two great King's ships. Yeou'm wishful to sink, burn, and destroy they while us kips 'em busy sellin' fish. No need tall me so twanty taime over. Us'll find they ships! Us'll find 'em, if us has to break our fine new bowsprit so close as Crump's bull's horn!"

"Good egg!" quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide shoulders with the smack of a beaver's tail.

"Us'll go look for they by hand. Us'll give they something to play upon; an' do 'ee deal with them faithfully, an' may the Lard have mercy on your sowls! Amen. Put I in dinghy again."

The fog was as dense as ever—we moved in the very womb of night—but I cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided by the tow-rope, disappeared toward the Agatha, Pyecroft rowing. The bell began again on the starboard bow.

"We're pretty near," said Moorshed, slowing down. "Out with the Berthon. (We'll sell 'em fish, too.) And if any one rows Navy-stroke, I'll break his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe (this down the tube), "you'll stay here in charge with Gregory and Shergold and the engine-room staff. Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes." A deep groan broke from Morgan's chest, but he said nothing. "If the fog thins and you're seen by any one, keep'em quiet with the signals. I can't think of the precise lie just now, but you can, Morgan."

"Yes, Sir."

"Suppose their torpedo-nets are down?" I whispered, shivering with excitement.

"If they've been repairing minor defects all day, they won't have any one to spare from the engine-room, and 'Out nets!' is a job for the whole ship's company. I expect they've trusted to the fog—like us. Well, Pyecroft?"

That great soul had blown up on to the bridge like a feather. "'Ad to see the first o' the rum into the Agathites, Sir. They was a bit jealous o' their commandin' officer comin' 'ome so richly lacquered, and at first the conversazione languished, as you might say. But they sprang to attention ere I left. Six sharp strokes on the bells, if any of 'em are sober enough to keep tally, will be the signal that our consort 'as cast off her tow an' is manceuvrin' on 'er own."

"Right O! Take Laughton with you in the dinghy. Put that Berthon over quietly there! Are you all right, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"

I stood back to avoid the rush of half-a-dozen shadows dropping into the Berthon boat. A hand caught me by the slack of my garments, moved me in generous arcs through the night, and I rested on the bottom of the dinghy.

"I want you for prima facie evidence, in case the vaccination don't take," said Pyecroft in my ear. "Push off, Alf!"

The last bell-ringing was high overhead. It was followed by six little tinkles from the Agatha, the roar of her falling anchor, the clash of pans, and loose shouting.

"Where be gwine tu? Port your 'ellum. Aie! you mud-dredger in the fairway, goo astern! Out boats! She'll sink us!"

A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: "Quiet! you gardeners there. This is the Cryptic at anchor."

"Thank you for the range," said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly. "Feel well out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only Marconi installation." The voices resumed:

"Bournemouth steamer he says she be."

"Then where be Brixham Harbor?"

"Damme, I'm a tax-payer tu. They've no right to cruise about this way. I'll have the laa on 'ee if anything carries away."

Then the man-of-war:

"Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You'll get yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift."

The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking, swung. I passed one hand down Laughton's stretched arm and felt an iron gooseneck and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The other hand I laid on broad, cold iron—even the flanks of H.M.S. Cryptic, which is twelve thousand tons.

I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour to shave, and I smelled paint. "Drop aft a bit, Alf; we'll put a stencil under the stern six-inch casements."

Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall. Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was renewed.

"Umpires are 'ard-'earted blighters, but this ought to convince 'em.... Captain Panke's stern-walk is now above our defenceless 'eads. Repeat the evolution up the starboard side, Alf."

I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating with life. Though my knowledge was all by touch—as, for example, when Pyecroft led my surrendered hand to the base of some bulging sponson, or when my palm closed on the knife-edge of the stem and patted it timidly—yet I felt lonely and unprotected as the enormous, helpless ship was withdrawn, and we drifted away into the void where voices sang:

Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me thy gray mare, All along, out along, down along lea! I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair With Bill Brewer, Sam Sewer, Peter Gurney, Harry Hawke, Old Uncle Tom Cobley an' all!

"That's old Sinbad an' 'is little lot from the Agatha! Give way, Alf! You might sing somethin', too."

"I'm no burnin' Patti. Ain't there noise enough for you, Pye?"

"Yes, but it's only amateurs. Give me the tones of 'earth and 'ome. Ha! List to the blighter on the 'orizon sayin' his prayers, Navy-fashion. 'Eaven 'elp me argue that way when I'm a warrant-officer!"

We headed with little lapping strokes toward what seemed to be a fair- sized riot.

"An' I've 'eard the Devolution called a happy ship, too," said Pyecroft. "Just shows 'ow a man's misled by prejudice. She's peevish—that's what she is—nasty-peevish. Prob'ly all because the Agathites are scratching 'er paint. Well, rub along, Alf. I've got the lymph!"

A voice, which Mr. Pyecroft assured me belonged to a chief carpenter, was speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the lower deck). He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly reduced rates. Nobody wished to buy any fish. This ship was the Devolution at anchor, and desired no communication with shore boats.

"Mark how the Navy 'olds it's own. He's sober. The Agathites are not, as you might say, an' yet they can't live with 'im. It's the discipline that does it. 'Ark to the bald an' unconvincin' watch-officer chimin' in. I wonder where Mr. Moorshed has got to?"

We drifted down the Devolution's side, as we had drifted down her sister's; and we dealt with her in that dense gloom as we had dealt with her sister.

"Whai! 'Tis a man-o'-war, after all! I can see the captain's whisker all gilt at the edges! We took 'ee for the Bournemouth steamer. Three cheers for the real man-o'-war!"

That cry came from under the Devolution's stern. Pyecroft held something in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, "Our Mister Moorshed!"

Said a boy's voice above us, just as we dodged a jet of hot water from some valve: "I don't half like that cheer. If I'd been the old man I'd ha' turned loose the quick-firers at the first go-off. Aren't they rowing Navy-stroke, yonder?"

"True," said Pyecroft, listening to retreating oars. "It's time to go 'ome when snotties begin to think. The fog's thinnin', too."

I felt a chill breath on my forehead, and saw a few feet of the steel stand out darker than the darkness, disappear—it was then the dinghy shot away from it—and emerge once more.

"Hallo! what boat's that?" said the voice suspiciously.

"Why, I do believe it's a real man-o'-war, after all," said Pyecroft, and kicked Laughton.

"What's that for?" Laughton was no dramatist.

"Answer in character, you blighter! Say somethin' opposite."

"What boat's thatt?" The hail was repeated.

"What do yee say-ay?" Pyecroft bellowed, and, under his breath to me: "Give us a hand."

"It's called the Marietta—F. J. Stokes—Torquay," I began, quaveringly. "At least, that's the name on the name-board. I've been dining—on a yacht."

"I see." The voice shook a little, and my way opened before me with disgraceful ease.

"Yesh. Dining private yacht. Eshmesheralda. I belong to Torquay Yacht Club. Are you member Torquay Yacht Club?"

"You'd better go to bed, Sir. Good-night." We slid into the rapidly thinning fog.

"Dig out, Alf. Put your nix mangiare back into it. The fog's peelin' off like a petticoat. Where's Two Six Seven?"

"I can't see her," I replied, "but there's a light low down ahead."

"The Agatha!" They rowed desperately through the uneasy dispersal of the fog for ten minutes and ducked round the trawler's bow.

"Well, Emanuel means 'God with us'—so far." Pyecroft wiped his brow, laid a hand on the low rail, and as he boosted me up to the trawler, I saw Moorshed's face, white as pearl in the thinning dark.

"Was it all right?" said he, over the bulwarks.

"Vaccination ain't in it. She's took beautiful. But where's 267, Sir?" Pyecroft replied.

"Gone. We came here as the fog lifted. I gave the Devolution four. Was that you behind us?"

"Yes, sir; but I only got in three on the Devolution. I gave the Cryptic nine, though. They're what you might call more or less vaccinated."

He lifted me inboard, where Moorshed and six pirates lay round the Agatha's hatch. There was a hint of daylight in the cool air.

"Where is the old man?" I asked.

"Still selling 'em fish, I suppose. He's a darling! But I wish I could get this filthy paint off my hands. Hallo! What the deuce is the Cryptic signalling?"

A pale masthead light winked through the last of the fog. It was answered by a white pencil to the southward.

"Destroyer signalling with searchlight." Pyecroft leaped on the stern- rail. "The first part is private signals. Ah! now she's Morsing against the fog. 'P-O-S-T'—yes, 'postpone'—'D-E-P-' (go on)! 'departure—till— further—orders—which—will—be com" (he's dropped the other m) "'unicated—verbally. End,'." He swung round. "Cryptic is now answering: 'Ready—proceed—immediately. What—news—promised—destroyer— flotilla?'"

"Hallo!" said Moorshed. "Well, never mind, They'll come too late."

"Whew! That's some 'igh-born suckling on the destroyer. Destroyer signals: 'Care not. All will be known later.' What merry beehive's broken loose now?"

"What odds! We've done our little job."

"Why—why—it's Two Six Seven!"

Here Pyecroft dropped from the rail among the fishy nets and shook the Agatha with heavings. Moorshed cast aside his cigarette, looked over the stern, and fell into his subordinate's arms. I heard the guggle of engines, the rattle of a little anchor going over not a hundred yards away, a cough, and Morgan's subdued hail. ... So far as I remember, it was Laughton whom I hugged; but the men who hugged me most were Pyecroft and Moorshed, adrift among the fishy nets.

There was no semblance of discipline in our flight over the Agatha's side, nor, indeed, were ordinary precautions taken for the common safety, because (I was in the Berthon) they held that patent boat open by hand for the most part. We regained our own craft, cackling like wild geese, and crowded round Moorshed and Hinchcliffe. Behind us the Agatha's boat, returning from her fish-selling cruise, yelled: "Have 'ee done the trick? Have 'ee done the trick?" and we could only shout hoarsely over the stern, guaranteeing them rum by the hold-full.

"Fog got patchy here at 12:27," said Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, growing clearer every instant in the dawn. "Went down to Brixham Harbour to keep out of the road. Heard whistles to the south and went to look. I had her up to sixteen good. Morgan kept on shedding private Red Fleet signals out of the signal-book, as the fog cleared, till we was answered by three destroyers. Morgan signalled 'em by searchlight: 'Alter course to South Seventeen East, so as not to lose time,' They came round quick. We kept well away—on their port beam—and Morgan gave 'em their orders." He looked at Morgan and coughed.

"The signalman, acting as second in command," said Morgan, swelling, "then informed destroyer flotilla that Cryptic and Devolution had made good defects, and, in obedience to Admiral's supplementary orders (I was afraid they might suspect that, but they didn't), had proceeded at seven knots at 11:23 p. M. to rendezvous near Channel Islands, seven miles N.N.W. the Casquet light. (I've rendezvoused there myself, Sir.) Destroyer flotilla would therefore follow cruisers and catch up with them on their course. Destroyer flotilla then dug out on course indicated, all funnels sparking briskly."

"Who were the destroyers?"

"Wraith, Kobbold, Stiletto, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett, acting under Admiral's orders to escort cruisers received off the Dodman at 7 P. M. They'd come slow on account of fog."

"Then who were you?"

"We were the Afrite, port-engine broke down, put in to Torbay, and there instructed by Cryptic, previous to her departure with Devolution) to inform Commander Hignett of change of plans. Lieutenant-Commander Hignett signalled that our meeting was quite providential. After this we returned to pick up our commanding officer, and being interrogated by Cryptic, marked time signalling as requisite, which you may have seen. The Agatha representing the last known rallying-point—or, as I should say, pivot- ship of the evolution—it was decided to repair to the Agatha at conclusion of manoeuvre."

"Is there such a thing as one fine big drink aboard this one fine big battleship?" "Can do, sir," said Pyecroft, and got it. Beginning with Mr. Moorshed and ending with myself, junior to the third first-class stoker, we drank, and it was as water of the brook, that two and a half inches of stiff, treacly, Navy rum. And we looked each in the other's face, and we nodded, bright-eyed, burning with bliss.

Moorshed walked aft to the torpedo-tubes and paced back and forth, a captain victorious on his own quarterdeck; and the triumphant day broke over the green-bedded villas of Torquay to show us the magnitude of our victory. There lay the cruisers (I have reason to believe that they had made good their defects). They were each four hundred and forty feet long and sixty-six wide; they held close upon eight hundred men apiece, and they had cost, say, a million and a half the pair. And they were ours, and they did not know it. Indeed, the Cryptic, senior ship, was signalling vehement remarks to our address, which we did not notice.

"If you take these glasses, you'll get the general run o' last night's vaccination," said Pyecroft. "Each one represents a torpedo got 'ome, as you might say."

I saw on the Cryptic's port side, as she lay half a mile away across the glassy water, four neat white squares in outline, a white blur in the centre.

"There are five more to starboard. 'Ere's the original!" He handed me a paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet square, bearing in the centre the six-inch initials, "G.M."

"Ten minutes ago I'd ha' eulogised about that little trick of ours, but Morgan's performance has short-circuited me. Are you happy, Morgan?"

"Bustin'," said the signalman briefly.

"You may be. Gawd forgive you, Morgan, for as Queen 'Enrietta said to the 'ousemaid, I never will. I'd ha' given a year's pay for ten minutes o' your signallin' work this mornin'."

"I wouldn't 'ave took it up," was the answer. "Perishin' 'Eavens above! Look at the Devolution's semaphore!" Two black wooden arms waved from the junior ship's upper bridge. "They've seen it."

"The mote on their neighbour's beam, of course," said Pyecroft, and read syllable by syllable: "'Captain Malan to Captain Panke. Is—sten— cilled frieze your starboard side new Admiralty regulation, or your Number One's private expense?' Now Cryptic is saying, 'Not understood.' Poor old Crippy, the Devolute's raggin' 'er sore. 'Who is G.M.?' she says. That's fetched the Cryptic. She's answerin': 'You ought to know. Examine own paintwork.' Oh, Lord! they're both on to it now. This is balm. This is beginning to be balm. I forgive you, Morgan!"

Two frantic pipes twittered. From either cruiser a whaler dropped into the water and madly rowed round the ship: as a gay-coloured hoist rose to the Cryptic's yardarm: "Destroyer will close at once. Wish to speak by semaphore." Then on the bridge semaphore itself: "Have been trying to attract your attention last half hour. Send commanding officer aboard at once."

"Our attention? After all the attention we've given 'er, too," said Pyecroft. "What a greedy old woman!" To Moorshed: "Signal from the Cryptic, Sir."

"Never mind that!" said the boy, peering through his glasses. "Our dinghy quick, or they'll paint our marks out. Come along!"

By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft's bending back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as we skimmed the Cryptic's ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman in her whaler when we barged fairly into him.

"Mind my paint!" he yelled.

"You mind mine, snotty," said Moorshed. "I was all night putting these little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave 'em alone."

We splashed past him to the Devolution's boat, where sat no one less than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer.

"What the deuce is the meaning of this?" he roared, with an accusing forefinger.

"You're sunk, that's all. You've been dead half a tide."

"Dead, am I? I'll show you whether I'm dead or not, Sir!"

"Well, you may be a survivor," said Moorshed ingratiatingly, "though it isn't at all likely."

The officer choked for a minute. The midshipman crouched up in stern said, half aloud: "Then I was right—last night."

"Yesh," I gasped from the dinghy's coal-dust. "Are you member Torquay Yacht Club?"

"Hell!" said the first lieutenant, and fled away. The Cryptic's boat was already at that cruiser's side, and semaphores flicked zealously from ship to ship. We floated, a minute speck, between the two hulls, while the pipes went for the captain's galley on the Devolution.

"That's all right," said Moorshed. "Wait till the gangway's down and then board her decently. We oughtn't to be expected to climb up a ship we've sunk."

Pyecroft lay on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan, full-uniformed, descended the Devolution's side. With due compliments—not acknowledged, I grieve to say—we fell in behind his sumptuous galley, and at last, upon pressing invitation, climbed, black as sweeps all, the lowered gangway of the Cryptic. At the top stood as fine a constellation of marine stars as ever sang together of a morning on a King's ship. Every one who could get within earshot found that his work took him aft. I counted eleven able seamen polishing the breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four marines zealously relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine midshipmen of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the higher ranks past all census.

"If I die o' joy," said Pyecroft behind his hand, "remember I died forgivin' Morgan from the bottom of my 'eart, because, like Martha, we 'ave scoffed the better part. You'd better try to come to attention, Sir."

Moorshed ran his eye voluptuously over the upper deck battery, the huge beam, and the immaculate perspective of power. Captain Panke and Captain Malan stood on the well-browned flash-plates by the dazzling hatch. Precisely over the flagstaff I saw Two Six Seven astern, her black petticoat half hitched up, meekly floating on the still sea. She looked like the pious Abigail who has just spoken her mind, and, with folded hands, sits thanking Heaven among the pieces. I could almost have sworn that she wore black worsted gloves and had a little dry cough. But it was Captain Panke that coughed so austerely. He favoured us with a lecture on uniform, deportment, and the urgent necessity of answering signals from a senior ship. He told us that he disapproved of masquerading, that he loved discipline, and would be obliged by an explanation. And while he delivered himself deeper and more deeply into our hands, I saw Captain Malan wince. He was watching Moorshed's eye.

"I belong to Blue Fleet, Sir. I command Number Two Six Seven," said Moorshed, and Captain Planke was dumb. "Have you such a thing as a frame- plan of the Cryptic aboard?" He spoke with winning politeness as he opened a small and neatly folded paper.

"I have, sir." The little man's face was working with passion.

"Ah! Then I shall be able to show you precisely where you were torpedoed last night in"—he consulted the paper with one finely arched eyebrow—"in nine places. And since the Devolution is, I understand, a sister ship"— he bowed slightly toward Caplain Malan—"the same plan——"

I had followed the clear precision of each word with a dumb amazement which seemed to leave my mind abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan's eye turn from Moorshed and seek that of the Cryptic's commander. And he telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: "My dear friend and brother officer, I know Panke; you know Panke; we know Panke—good little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke will make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things straight, unless you who are a man of tact and discernment——"

"Carry on." The Commander's order supplied the unspoken word. The cruiser boiled about her business around us; watch and watch officers together, up to the limit of noise permissible. I saw Captain Malan turn to his senior.

"Come to my cabin!" said Panke gratingly, and led the way. Pyecroft and I stayed still.

"It's all right," said Pyecroft. "They daren't leave us loose aboard for one revolution," and I knew that he had seen what I had seen.

"You, too!" said Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the sentry between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since that Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from curiosity, I winked at him. We entered the chintz-adorned, photo-speckled, brass- fendered, tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with a ruler, was demonstrating before the frame-plan of H.M.S. Cryptic.

"—making nine stencils in all of my initials G.M.," I heard him say. "Further, you will find attached to your rudder, and you, too, Sir"—he bowed to Captain Malan yet again—"one fourteen-inch Mark IV practice torpedo, as issued to first-class torpedo-boats, properly buoyed. I have sent full particulars by telegraph to the umpires, and have requested them to judge on the facts as they—appear." He nodded through the large window to the stencilled Devolution awink with brass work in the morning sun, and ceased.

Captain Panke faced us. I remembered that this was only play, and caught myself wondering with what keener agony comes the real defeat.

"Good God, Johnny!" he said, dropping his lower lip like a child, "this young pup says he has put us both out of action. Inconceivable—eh? My first command of one of the class. Eh? What shall we do with him? What shall we do with him—eh?"

"As far as I can see, there's no getting over the stencils," his companion answered.

"Why didn't I have the nets down? Why didn't I have the nets down?" The cry tore itself from Captain Panke's chest as he twisted his hands.

"I suppose we'd better wait and find out what the umpires will say. The Admiral won't be exactly pleased." Captain Malan spoke very soothingly. Moorshed looked out through the stern door at Two Six Seven. Pyecroft and I, at attention, studied the paintwork opposite. Captain Panke had dropped into his desk chair, and scribbled nervously at a blotting-pad.

Just before the tension became unendurable, he looked at his junior for a lead. "What—what are you going to do about it, Johnny—eh?"

"Well, if you don't want him, I'm going to ask this young gentleman to breakfast, and then we'll make and mend clothes till the umpires have decided."

Captain Panke flung out a hand swiftly.

"Come with me," said Captain Malan. "Your men had better go back in the dinghy to—their—own—ship."

"Yes, I think so," said Moorshed, and passed out behind the captain. We followed at a respectful interval, waiting till they had ascended the ladder.

Said the sentry, rigid as the naked barometer behind him: "For Gawd's sake! 'Ere, come 'ere! For Gawd's sake! What's 'appened? Oh! come 'ere an' tell."

"Tell? You?" said Pyecroft. Neither man's lips moved, and the words were whispers: "Your ultimate illegitimate grandchildren might begin to understand, not you—nor ever will."

"Captain Malan's galley away, Sir," cried a voice above; and one replied: "Then get those two greasers into their dinghy and hoist the blue peter. We're out of action."

"Can you do it, Sir?" said Pyecroft at the foot of the ladder. "Do you think it is in the English language, or do you not?"

"I don't think I can, but I'll try. If it takes me two years, I'll try."

* * * * *

There are witnesses who can testify that I have used no artifice. I have, on the contrary, cut away priceless slabs of opus alexandrinum. My gold I have lacquered down to dull bronze, my purples overlaid with sepia of the sea, and for hell-hearted ruby and blinding diamond I have substituted pale amethyst and mere jargoon. Because I would say again "Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain whose other name is Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice."



THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER

THE KING'S TASK

After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name, In the years when the Lights were darkened, or ever Saint Wilfrid came. Low on the borders of Britain, the ancient poets sing, Between the cliff and the forest there ruled a Saxon king.

Stubborn all were his people, a stark and a jealous horde— Not to be schooled by the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword; Blithe to turn at their pleasure, bitter to cross in their mood, And set on the ways of their choosing as the hogs of Andred's Wood ...

They made them laws in the Witan, the laws of flaying and fine, Folkland, common and pannage, the theft and the track of kine; Statutes of tun and of market for the fish and the malt and the meal, The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel. Over the graves of the Druids and over the wreck of Rome Rudely but deeply they bedded the plinth of the days to come. Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Northman's ire, Rudely but greatly begat they the body of state and of shire. Rudely but greatly they laboured, and their labour stands till now If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.

THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER

Private Copper's father was a Southdown shepherd; in early youth Copper had studied under him. Five years' army service had somewhat blunted Private Copper's pastoral instincts, but it occurred to him as a memory of the Chalk that sheep, or in this case buck, do not move towards one across turf, or in this case, the Colesberg kopjes unless a stranger, or in this case an enemy, is in the neighbourhood. Copper, helmet back-first advanced with caution, leaving his mates of the picket full a mile behind. The picket, concerned for its evening meal, did not protest. A year ago it would have been an officer's command, moving as such. To-day it paid casual allegiance to a Canadian, nominally a sergeant, actually a trooper of Irregular Horse, discovered convalescent in Naauwport Hospital, and forthwith employed on odd jobs. Private Copper crawled up the side of a bluish rock-strewn hill thinly fringed with brush atop, and remembering how he had peered at Sussex conies through the edge of furze-clumps, cautiously parted the dry stems before his face. At the foot of the long slope sat three farmers smoking. To his natural lust for tobacco was added personal wrath because spiky plants were pricking his belly, and Private Copper slid the backsight up to fifteen hundred yards....

"Good evening, Khaki. Please don't move," said a voice on his left, and as he jerked his head round he saw entirely down the barrel of a well-kept Lee-Metford protruding from an insignificant tuft of thorn. Very few graven images have moved less than did Private Copper through the next ten seconds.

"It's nearer seventeen hundred than fifteen," said a young man in an obviously ready-made suit of grey tweed, possessing himself of Private Copper's rifle. "Thank you. We've got a post of thirty-seven men out yonder. You've eleven—eh? We don't want to kill 'em. We have no quarrel with poor uneducated Khakis, and we do not want prisoners we do not keep. It is demoralising to both sides—eh?"

Private Cooper did not feel called upon to lay down the conduct of guerilla warfare. This dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed stranger was his first intimate enemy. He spoke, allowing for a clipped cadence that recalled to Copper vague memories of Umballa, in precisely the same offensive accent that the young squire of Wilmington had used fifteen years ago when he caught and kicked Alf Copper, a rabbit in each pocket, out of the ditches of Cuckmere. The enemy looked Copper up and down, folded and re-pocketed a copy of an English weekly which he had been reading, and said: "You seem an inarticulate sort of swine—like the rest of them—eh?"

"You," said Copper, thinking, somehow, of the crushing answers he had never given to the young squire, "are a renegid. Why, you ain't Dutch. You're English, same as me."

"No, khaki. If you cannot talk civilly to a gentleman I will blow your head off."

Copper cringed, and the action overbalanced him so that he rolled some six or eight feet downhill, under the lee of a rough rock. His brain was working with a swiftness and clarity strange in all his experience of Alf Copper. While he rolled he spoke, and the voice from his own jaws amazed him: "If you did, 'twouldn't make you any less of a renegid." As a useful afterthought he added: "I've sprained my ankle."

The young man was at his side in a flash. Copper made no motion to rise, but, cross-legged under the rock, grunted: "'Ow much did old Krujer pay you for this? What was you wanted for at 'ome? Where did you desert from?"

"Khaki," said the young man, sitting down in his turn, "you are a shade better than your mates. You did not make much more noise than a yoke of oxen when you tried to come up this hill, but you are an ignorant diseased beast like the rest of your people—eh? When you were at the Ragged Schools did they teach you any history, Tommy—'istory I mean?"

"Don't need no schoolin' to know a renegid," said Copper. He had made three yards down the hill—out of sight, unless they could see through rocks, of the enemy's smoking party.

The young man laughed; and tossed the soldier a black sweating stick of "True Affection." (Private Copper had not smoked a pipe for three weeks.)

"You don't get this—eh?" said the young man. "We do. We take it from the trains as we want it. You can keep the cake—you po-ah Tommee." Copper rammed the good stuff into his long-cold pipe and puffed luxuriously. Two years ago the sister of gunner-guard De Souza, East India Railway, had, at a dance given by the sergeants to the Allahabad Railway Volunteers, informed Copper that she could not think of waltzing with "a poo-ah Tommee." Private Copper wondered why that memory should have returned at this hour.

"I'm going to waste a little trouble on you before I send you back to your picket quite naked—eh? Then you can say how you were overpowered by twenty of us and fired off your last round—like the men we picked up at the drift playing cards at Stryden's farm—eh? What's your name—eh?"

Private Copper thought for a moment of a far-away housemaid who might still, if the local postman had not gone too far, be interested in his fate. On the other hand, he was, by temperament, economical of the truth. "Pennycuik," he said, "John Pennycuik."

"Thank you. Well, Mr. John Pennycuik, I'm going to teach you a little 'istory, as you'd call it—eh?"

"'Ow!" said Copper, stuffing his left hand in his mouth. "So long since I've smoked I've burned my 'and—an' the pipe's dropped too. No objection to my movin' down to fetch it, is there—Sir?"

"I've got you covered," said the young man, graciously, and Private Copper, hopping on one leg, because of his sprain, recovered the pipe yet another three yards downhill and squatted under another rock slightly larger than the first. A roundish boulder made a pleasant rest for his captor, who sat cross-legged once more, facing Copper, his rifle across his knee, his hand on the trigger-guard.

"Well, Mr. Pennycuik, as I was going to tell you. A little after you were born in your English workhouse, your kind, honourable, brave country, England, sent an English gentleman, who could not tell a lie, to say that so long as the sun rose and the rivers ran in their courses the Transvaal would belong to England. Did you ever hear that, khaki—eh?"

"Oh no, Sir," said Copper. This sentence about the sun and the rivers happened to be a very aged jest of McBride, the professional humorist of D Company, when they discussed the probable length of the war. Copper had thrown beef-tins at McBride in the grey dawn of many wet and dry camps for intoning it.

"Of course you would not. Now, mann, I tell you, listen." He spat aside and cleared his throat. "Because of that little promise, my father he moved into the Transvaal and bought a farm—a little place of twenty or thirty thousand acres, don't—you—know."

The tone, in spite of the sing-song cadence fighting with the laboured parody of the English drawl, was unbearably like the young Wilmington squire's, and Copper found himself saying: "I ought to. I've 'elped burn some."

"Yes, you'll pay for that later. And he opened a store."

"Ho! Shopkeeper was he?"

"The kind you call "Sir" and sweep the floor for, Pennycuik.... You see, in those days one used to believe in the British Government. My father did. Then the Transvaal wiped thee earth with the English. They beat them six times running. You know thatt—eh?"

"Isn't what we've come 'ere for."

"But my father (he knows better now) kept on believing in the English. I suppose it was the pretty talk about rivers and suns that cheated him—eh? Anyhow, he believed in his own country. Inn his own country. So—you see—he was a little startled when he found himself handed over to the Transvaal as a prisoner of war. That's what it came to, Tommy—a prisoner of war. You know what that is—eh? England was too honourable and too gentlemanly to take trouble. There were no terms made for my father."

"So 'e made 'em 'imself. Useful old bird." Private Copper sliced up another pipeful and looked out across the wrinkled sea of kopjes, through which came the roar of the rushing Orange River, so unlike quiet Cuckmere.

The young man's face darkened. "I think I shall sjambok you myself when I've quite done with you. No, my father (he was a fool) made no terms for eight years—ninety-six months—and for every day of them the Transvaal made his life hell for my father and—his people."

"I'm glad to hear that," said the impenitent Copper.

"Are you? You can think of it when I'm taking the skin off your back— eh?... My father, he lost everything—everything down to his self-respect. You don't know what thatt means—eh?"

"Why?" said Copper. "I'm smokin' baccy stole by a renegid. Why wouldn't I know?"

If it came to a flogging on that hillside there might be a chance of reprisals. Of course, he might be marched to the Boer camp in the next valley and there operated upon; but Army life teaches no man to cross bridges unnecessarily.

"Yes, after eight years, my father, cheated by your bitch of a country, he found out who was the upper dog in South Africa."

"That's me," said Copper valiantly. "If it takes another 'alf century, it's me an' the likes of me."

"You? Heaven help you! You'll be screaming at a wagon-wheel in an hour.... Then it struck my father that he'd like to shoot the people who'd betrayed him. You—you—you! He told his son all about it. He told him never to trust the English. He told him to do them all the harm he could. Mann, I tell you, I don't want much telling. I was born in the Transvaal—I'm a burgher. If my father didn't love the English, by the Lord, mann, I tell you, I hate them from the bottom of my soul."

The voice quavered and ran high. Once more, for no conceivable reason, Private Copper found his inward eye turned upon Umballa cantonments of a dry dusty afternoon, when the saddle-coloured son of a local hotel-keeper came to the barracks to complain of a theft of fowls. He saw the dark face, the plover's-egg-tinted eyeballs, and the thin excited hands. Above all, he remembered the passionate, queerly-strung words. Slowly he returned to South Africa, using the very sentence his sergeant had used to the poultry man.

"Go on with your complaint. I'm listenin'."

"Complaint! Complaint about you, you ox! We strip and kick your sort by thousands."

The young man rocked to and fro above the rifle, whose muzzle thus deflected itself from the pit of Private Copper's stomach. His face was dusky with rage.

"Yess, I'm a Transvaal burgher. It took us about twenty years to find out how rotten you were. We know and you know it now. Your army—it is the laughing-stock of the Continent." He tapped the newspaper in his pocket, "You think you're going to win, you poor fools. Your people—your own people—your silly rotten fools of people will crawl out of it as they did after Majuba. They are beginning now. Look what your own working classes, the diseased, lying, drinking white stuff that you come out of, are saying." He thrust the English weekly, doubled at the leading article, on Copper's knee. "See what dirty dogs your masters are. They do not even back you in your dirty work. We cleared the country down to Ladysmith— to Estcourt. We cleared the country down to Colesberg."

"Yes, we 'ad to clean up be'ind you. Messy, I call it."

"You've had to stop farm-burning because your people daren't do it. They were afraid. You daren't kill a spy. You daren't shoot a spy when you catch him in your own uniform. You daren't touch our loyall people in Cape Town! Your masters wont let you. You will feed our women and children till we are quite ready to take them back. You can't put your cowardly noses out of the towns you say you've occupied. You daren't move a convoy twenty miles. You think you've done something? You've done nothing, and you've taken a quarter of a million of men to do it! There isn't a nigger in South Africa that doesn't obey us if we lift our finger. You pay the stuff four pounds a month and they lie to you. We flog 'em, as I shall flog you."

He clasped his hands together and leaned forward his out-thrust chin within two feet of Copper's left, or pipe hand.

"Yuss," said Copper, "it's a fair knock-out." The fist landed to a hair on the chin-point, the neck snicked like a gun-lock, and the back of the head crashed on the boulder behind.

Copper grabbed up both rifles, unshipped the cross-bandoliers, drew forth the English weekly, and picking up the lax hands, looked long and intently at the fingernails.

"No! Not a sign of it there," he said. "'Is nails are as clean as mine— but he talks just like 'em, though. And he's a landlord too! A landed proprietor! Shockin', I call it."

The arms began to flap with returning consciousness. Private Copper rose up and whispered: "If you open your head, I'll bash it." There was no suggestion of sprain in the flung-back left boot. "Now walk in front of me, both arms perpendicularly elevated. I'm only a third-class shot, so, if you don't object, I'll rest the muzzle of my rifle lightly but firmly on your collar-button—coverin' the serviceable vertebree. If your friends see us thus engaged, you pray—'ard."

Private and prisoner staggered downhill. No shots broke the peace of the afternoon, but once the young man checked and was sick.

"There's a lot of things I could say to you," Copper observed, at the close of the paroxysm, "but it doesn't matter. Look 'ere, you call me 'pore Tommy' again."

The prisoner hesitated.

"Oh, I ain't goin' to do anythin' to you. I'm recon-noiterin' in my own. Say 'pore Tommy' 'alf-a-dozen times."

The prisoner obeyed.

"That's what's been puzzlin' me since I 'ad the pleasure o' meetin' you," said Copper. "You ain't 'alf-caste, but you talk chee-chee— pukka bazar chee-chee. Proceed."

"Hullo," said the Sergeant of the picket, twenty minutes later, "where did you round him up?"

"On the top o' yonder craggy mounting. There's a mob of 'em sitting round their Bibles seventeen 'undred yards (you said it was seventeen 'undred?) t'other side—an' I want some coffee." He sat down on the smoke-blackened stones by the fire.

"'Ow did you get 'im?" said McBride, professional humorist, quietly filching the English weekly from under Copper's armpit.

"On the chin—while 'e was waggin' it at me."

"What is 'e? 'Nother Colonial rebel to be 'orribly disenfranchised, or a Cape Minister, or only a loyal farmer with dynamite in both boots. Tell us all about it, Burjer!"

"You leave my prisoner alone," said Private Copper. "'E's 'ad losses an' trouble; an' it's in the family too. 'E thought I never read the papers, so 'e kindly lent me his very own Jerrold's Weekly—an' 'e explained it to me as patronisin' as a—as a militia subaltern doin' Railway Staff Officer. 'E's a left-over from Majuba—one of the worst kind, an' 'earin' the evidence as I did, I don't exactly blame 'im. It was this way."

To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the life- history of his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was an absolute fair rendering.

"But what I dis-liked was this baccy-priggin' beggar, 'oo's people, on 'is own showin', couldn't 'ave been more than thirty or forty years in the coun—on this Gawd-forsaken dust-'eap, comin' the squire over me. They're all parsons—we know that, but parson an' squire is a bit too thick for Alf Copper. Why, I caught 'im in the shameful act of tryin' to start a aristocracy on a gun an' a wagon an' a shambuk! Yes; that's what it was: a bloomin' aristocracy."

"No, it weren't," said McBride, at length, on the dirt, above the purloined weekly. "You're the aristocrat, Alf. Old Jerrold's givin' it you 'ot. You're the uneducated 'ireling of a callous aristocracy which 'as sold itself to the 'Ebrew financier. Meantime, Ducky"—he ran his finger down a column of assorted paragraphs—"you're slakin' your brutal instincks in furious excesses. Shriekin' women an' desolated 'omesteads is what you enjoy, Alf ..., Halloa! What's a smokin' 'ektacomb?"

"'Ere! Let's look. 'Aven't seen a proper spicy paper for a year. Good old Jerrold's!" Pinewood and Moppet, reservists, flung themselves on McBride's shoulders, pinning him to the ground.

"Lie over your own bloomin' side of the bed, an' we can all look," he protested.

"They're only po-ah Tommies," said Copper, apologetically, to the prisoner. "Po-ah unedicated Khakis. They don't know what they're fightin' for. They're lookin' for what the diseased, lying, drinkin' white stuff that they come from is sayin' about 'em!"

The prisoner set down his tin of coffee and stared helplessly round the circle.

"I—I don't understand them."

The Canadian sergeant, picking his teeth with a thorn, nodded sympathetically:

"If it comes to that, we don't in my country!... Say, boys, when you're through with your English mail you might's well provide an escort for your prisoner. He's waitin'."

"Arf a mo', Sergeant," said McBride, still reading.

"'Ere's Old Barbarity on the ramp again with some of 'is lady friends, 'oo don't like concentration camps. Wish they'd visit ours. Pinewood's a married man. He'd know how to be'ave!"

"Well, I ain't goin' to amuse my prisoner alone. 'E's gettin' 'omesick," cried Copper. "One of you thieves read out what's vexin' Old Barbarity an' 'is 'arem these days. You'd better listen, Burjer, because, afterwards, I'm goin' to fall out an' perpetrate those nameless barbarities all over you to keep up the reputation of the British Army."

From that English weekly, to bar out which a large and perspiring staff of Press censors toiled seven days of the week at Cape Town, did Pinewood of the Reserve read unctuously excerpts of the speeches of the accredited leaders of His Majesty's Opposition. The night-picket arrived in the middle of it, but stayed entranced without paying any compliments, till Pinewood had entirely finished the leading article, and several occasional notes.

"Gentlemen of the jury," said Alf Copper, hitching up what war had left to him of trousers—"you've 'eard what 'e's been fed up with. Do you blame the beggar? 'Cause I don't! ... Leave 'im alone, McBride. He's my first and only cap-ture, an' I'm goin' to walk 'ome with 'im, ain't I, Ducky? ... Fall in, Burjer. It's Bermuda, or Umballa, or Ceylon for you—and I'd give a month's pay to be in your little shoes."

As not infrequently happens, the actual moving off the ground broke the prisoner's nerve. He stared at the tinted hills round him, gasped and began to struggle—kicking, swearing, weeping, and fluttering all together.

"Pore beggar—oh pore, pore beggar!" said Alf, leaning in on one side of him, while Pinewood blocked him on the other.

"Let me go! Let me go! Mann, I tell you, let me go——"

"'E screams like a woman!" said McBride. "They'll 'ear 'im five miles off."

"There's one or two ought to 'ear 'im—in England," said Copper, putting aside a wildly waving arm.

"Married, ain't 'e?" said Pinewood. "I've seen 'em go like this before— just at the last. 'Old on, old man, No one's goin' to 'urt you."

The last of the sun threw the enormous shadow of a kopje over the little, anxious, wriggling group.

"Quit that," said the Serjeant of a sudden. "You're only making him worse. Hands up, prisoner! Now you get a holt of yourself, or this'll go off."

And indeed the revolver-barrel square at the man's panting chest seemed to act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell in between Copper and Pinewood.

As the picket neared the camp it broke into song that was heard among the officers' tents:

'E sent us 'is blessin' from London town, (The beggar that kep' the cordite down,) But what do we care if 'e smile or frown, The beggar that kep' the cordite down? The mildly nefarious Wildly barbarious Beggar that kept the cordite down!

Said a captain a mile away: "Why are they singing that? We haven't had a mail for a month, have we?"

An hour later the same captain said to his servant: "Jenkins, I understand the picket have got a—got a newspaper off a prisoner to-day. I wish you could lay hands on it, Jenkins. Copy of the Times, I think."

"Yes, Sir. Copy of the Times, Sir," said Jenkins, without a quiver, and went forth to make his own arrangements.

"Copy of the Times" said the blameless Alf, from beneath his blanket. "I ain't a member of the Soldier's Institoot. Go an' look in the reg'mental Readin'-room—Veldt Row, Kopje Street, second turnin' to the left between 'ere an' Naauwport."

Jenkins summarised briefly in a tense whisper the thing that Alf Copper need not be.

"But my particular copy of the Times is specially pro'ibited by the censor from corruptin' the morals of the Army. Get a written order from K. o' K., properly countersigned, an' I'll think about it."

"I've got all you want," said Jenkins. "'Urry up. I want to 'ave a squint myself."

Something gurgled in the darkness, and Private Copper fell back smacking his lips.

"Gawd bless my prisoner, and make me a good boy. Amen. 'Ere you are, Jenkins. It's dirt cheap at a tot."



STEAM TACTICS

THE NECESSITARIAN

I know not in whose hands are laid To empty upon earth From unsuspected ambuscade The very Urns of Mirth:

Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise And cheer our solemn round— The Jest beheld with streaming eyes And grovellings on the ground;

Who joins the flats of Time and Chance Behind the prey preferred, And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance The Sacredly Absurd,

Till Laughter, voiceless through excess. Waves mute appeal and sore, Above the midriff's deep distress, For breath to laugh once more.

No creed hath dared to hail him Lord, No raptured choirs proclaim, And Nature's strenuous Overword Hath nowhere breathed his name.

Yet, may it be, on wayside jape, The selfsame Power bestows The selfsame power as went to shape His Planet or His Rose.

STEAM TACTICS I caught sight of their faces as we came up behind the cart in the narrow Sussex lane; but though it was not eleven o'clock, they were both asleep.

That the carrier was on the wrong side of the road made no difference to his language when I rang my bell. He said aloud of motor-cars, and specially of steam ones, all the things which I had read in the faces of superior coachmen. Then he pulled slantwise across me.

There was a vociferous steam air-pump attached to that car which could be applied at pleasure....

The cart was removed about a bowshot's length in seven and a quarter seconds, to the accompaniment of parcels clattering. At the foot of the next hill the horse stopped, and the two men came out over the tail-board.

My engineer backed and swung the car, ready to move out of reach.

"The blighted egg-boiler has steam up," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, pausing to gather a large stone. "Temporise with the beggar, Pye, till the sights come on!"

"I can't leave my 'orse!" roared the carrier; "but bring 'em up 'ere, an' I'll kill 'em all over again."

"Good morning, Mr. Pyecroft," I called cheerfully. "Can I give you a lift anywhere?"

The attack broke up round my forewheels.

"Well, we do 'ave the knack o' meeting in puris naturalibus, as I've so often said." Mr. Pyecroft wrung my hand. "Yes, I'm on leaf. So's Hinch. We're visiting friends among these kopjes."

A monotonous bellowing up the road persisted, where the carrier was still calling for corpses.

"That's Agg. He's Hinch's cousin. You aren't fortunit in your family connections, Hinch. 'E's usin' language in derogation of good manners. Go and abolish 'im."

Henry Salt Hinchcliffe stalked back to the cart and spoke to his cousin. I recall much that the wind bore to me of his words and the carrier's. It seemed as if the friendship of years were dissolving amid throes.

"'Ave it your own silly way, then," roared the carrier, "an' get into Linghurst on your own silly feet. I've done with you two runagates." He lashed his horse and passed out of sight still rumbling.

"The fleet's sailed," said Pyecroft, "leavin' us on the beach as before. Had you any particular port in your mind?"

"Well, I was going to meet a friend at Instead Wick, but I don't mind—"

"Oh! that'll do as well as anything! We're on leaf, you see."

"She'll hardly hold four," said my engineer. I had broken him of the foolish habit of being surprised at things, but he was visibly uneasy.

Hinchcliffe returned, drawn as by ropes to my steam-car, round which he walked in narrowing circles.

"What's her speed?" he demanded of the engineer.

"Twenty-five," said that loyal man.

"Easy to run?"

"No; very difficult," was the emphatic answer.

"That just shows that you ain't fit for your rating. D'you suppose that a man who earns his livin' by runnin' 30-knot destroyers for a parstime—for a parstime, mark you!—is going to lie down before any blighted land- crabbing steam-pinnace on springs?"

Yet that was what he did. Directly under the car he lay and looked upward into pipes—petrol, steam, and water—with a keen and searching eye.

I telegraphed Mr. Pyecroft a question.

"Not—in—the—least," was the answer. "Steam gadgets always take him that way. We had a bit of a riot at Parsley Green through his tryin' to show a traction-engine haulin' gipsy-wagons how to turn corners."

"Tell him everything he wants to know," I said to the engineer, as I dragged out a rug and spread it on the roadside.

"He don't want much showing," said the engineer. Now, the two men had not, counting the time we took to stuff our pipes, been together more than three minutes.

"This," said Pyecroft, driving an elbow back into the deep verdure of the hedge-foot, "is a little bit of all right. Hinch, I shouldn't let too much o' that hot muckings drop in my eyes, Your leaf's up in a fortnight, an' you'll be wantin' 'em."

"Here!" said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer. "Come here and show me the lead of this pipe." And the engineer lay down beside him.

"That's all right," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. "But she's more of a bag of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft"—he pointed to the back seat—"and I'll have a look at the forced draught."

The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that he had a brother an artificer in the Navy.

"They couple very well, those two," said Pyecroft critically, while Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay jets of steam.

"Now take me up the road," he said. My man, for form's sake, looked at me.

"Yes, take him," I said. "He's all right."

"No, I'm not," said Hinchcliffe of a sudden—"not if I'm expected to judge my water out of a little shaving-glass."

The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the right of the dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.

"Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind how you steer while you're doing it, or you'll get ditched!" I cried, as the car ran down the road.

"I wonder!" said Pyecroft, musing. "But, after all, it's your steamin' gadgets he's usin' for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me after breakfast only this mornin' 'ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours, that he wouldn't see nor smell nor thumb a runnin' bulgine till the nineteenth prox. Now look at him Only look at 'im!"

We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering his seat to Hinchcliffe, while the car flickered generously from hedge to hedge.

"What happens if he upsets?"

"The petrol will light up and the boiler may blow up."

"How rambunkshus! And"—Pyecroft blew a slow cloud—"Agg's about three hoops up this mornin', too."

"What's that to do with us? He's gone down the road," I retorted.

"Ye—es, but we'll overtake him. He's a vindictive carrier. He and Hinch 'ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O' course, Hinch don't know the elements o' that evolution; but he fell back on 'is naval rank an' office, an' Agg grew peevish. I wasn't sorry to get out of the cart ... Have you ever considered how, when you an' I meet, so to say, there's nearly always a remarkable hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the beef-boat returnin'!"

He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: "In bow! Way 'nuff!"

"You be quiet!" cried Hinchcliffe, and drew up opposite the rug, his dark face shining with joy. "She's the Poetry o' Motion! She's the Angel's Dream. She's———" He shut off steam, and the slope being against her, the car slid soberly downhill again.

"What's this? I've got the brake on!" he yelled.

"It doesn't hold backwards," I said. "Put her on the mid-link."

"That's a nasty one for the chief engineer o' the Djinn, 31-knot, T.B.D.," said Pyecroft. "Do you know what the mid-link is, Hinch?"

Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up the rug, Hinchcliffe jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like speed she retired backwards into her own steam.

"Apparently 'e don't," said Pyecroft. "What's he done now, Sir?"

"Reversed her. I've done it myself."

"But he's an engineer."

For the third time the car manoeuvred up the hill.

"I'll teach you to come alongside properly, if I keep you 'tiffies out all night!" shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a quotation. Hinchcliffe's face grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly working on the throttle, the car buzzed twenty yards uphill.

"That's enough. We'll take your word for it. The mountain will go to Ma'ommed. Stand fast!"

Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliffe fumed together.

"Not as easy as it looks—eh, Hinch?"

"It is dead easy. I'm going to drive her to Instead Wick—aren't I?" said the first-class engine-room artificer. I thought of his performances with No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a small privilege to accord to pure genius.

"But my engineer will stand by—at first," I added.

"An' you a family man, too," muttered Pyecroft, swinging himself into the right rear seat. "Sure to be a remarkably hectic day when we meet."

We adjusted ourselves and, in the language of the immortal Navy doctor, paved our way towards Linghurst, distant by mile-post 11-3/4 miles.

Mr. Hinchcliffe, every nerve and muscle braced, talked only to the engineer, and that professionally. I recalled the time when I, too, had enjoyed the rack on which he voluntarily extended himself.

And the County of Sussex slid by in slow time.

"How cautious is the 'tiffy-bird!" said Pyecroft.

"Even in a destroyer," Hinch snapped over his shoulder, "you ain't expected to con and drive simultaneous. Don't address any remarks to me!"

"Pump!" said the engineer. "Your water's droppin'."

"I know that. Where the Heavens is that blighted by-pass?"

He beat his right or throttle hand madly on the side of the car till he found the bent rod that more or less controls the pump, and, neglecting all else, twisted it furiously.

My engineer grabbed the steering-bar just in time to save us lurching into a ditch.

"If I was a burnin' peacock, with two hundred bloodshot eyes in my shinin' tail, I'd need 'em all on this job!" said Hinch.

"Don't talk! Steer! This ain't the North Atlantic," Pyecroft replied.

"Blast my stokers! Why, the steam's dropped fifty pounds!" Hinchcliffe cried.

"Fire's blown out," said the engineer. "Stop her!"

"Does she do that often?" said Hinch, descending.

"Sometimes."

"Anytime?"

"Any time a cross-wind catches her."

The engineer produced a match and stooped.

That car (now, thank Heaven, no more than an evil memory) never lit twice in the same fashion. This time she back-fired superbly, and Pyecroft went out over the right rear wheel in a column of rich yellow flame.

"I've seen a mine explode at Bantry—once—prematoor," he volunteered.

"That's all right," said Hinchcliffe, brushing down his singed beard with a singed forefinger. (He had been watching too closely.) "Has she any more little surprises up her dainty sleeve?"

"She hasn't begun yet," said my engineer, with a scornful cough. "Some one 'as opened the petrol-supply-valve too wide."

"Change places with me, Pyecroft," I commanded, for I remembered that the petrol-supply, the steam-lock, and the forced draught were all controlled from the right rear seat.

"Me? Why? There's a whole switchboard full o' nickel-plated muckin's which I haven't begun to play with yet. The starboard side's crawlin' with 'em."

"Change, or I'll kill you!" said Hinchcliffe, and he looked like it.

"That's the 'tiffy all over. When anything goes wrong, blame it on the lower deck. Navigate by your automatic self, then! I won't help you any more."

We navigated for a mile in dead silence.

"Talkin' o' wakes——" said Pyecroft suddenly.

"We weren't," Hinchcliffe grunted.

"There's some wakes would break a snake's back; but this of yours, so to speak, would fair turn a tapeworm giddy. That's all I wish to observe, Hinch. ... Cart at anchor on the port-bow. It's Agg!"

Far up the shaded road into secluded Bromlingleigh we saw the carrier's cart at rest before the post-office.

"He's bung in the fairway. How'm I to get past?" said Hinchcliffe. "There's no room. Here, Pye, come and relieve the wheel!"

"Nay, nay, Pauline. You've made your own bed. You've as good as left your happy home an' family cart to steal it. Now you lie on it."

"Ring your bell," I suggested.

"Glory!" said Pyecroft, falling forward into the nape of Hinchcliffe's neck as the car stopped dead.

"Get out o' my back-hair! That must have been the brake I touched off," Hinchcliffe muttered, and repaired his error tumultuously.

We passed the cart as though we had been all Bruges belfry. Agg, from the port-office door, regarded us with a too pacific eye. I remembered later that the pretty postmistress looked on us pityingly.

Hinchcliffe wiped the sweat from his brow and drew breath. It was the first vehicle that he had passed, and I sympathised with him.

"You needn't grip so hard," said my engineer. "She steers as easy as a bicycle."

"Ho! You suppose I ride bicycles up an' down my engine-room?" was the answer. "I've other things to think about. She's a terror. She's a whistlin' lunatic. I'd sooner run the old South-Easter at Simon's Town than her!"

"One of the nice things they say about her," I interrupted, "is that no engineer is needed to run this machine."

"No. They'd need about seven."

"'Common-sense only is needed,'" I quoted.

"Make a note of that, Hinch. Just common-sense," Pyecroft put in.

"And now," I said, "we'll have to take in water. There isn't more than a couple of inches of water in the tank."

"Where d'you get it from?"

"Oh!—cottages and such-like."

"Yes, but that being so, where does your much-advertised twenty-five miles an hour come in? Ain't a dung-cart more to the point?"

"If you want to go anywhere, I suppose it would be," I replied.

"I don't want to go anywhere. I'm thinkin' of you who've got to live with her. She'll burn her tubes if she loses her water?"

"She will."

"I've never scorched yet, and I not beginnin' now." He shut off steam firmly. "Out you get, Pye, an' shove her along by hand."

"Where to?"

"The nearest water-tank," was the reply. "And Sussex is a dry county."

"She ought to have drag-ropes—little pipe-clayed ones," said Pyecroft.

We got out and pushed under the hot sun for half-a-mile till we came to a cottage, sparsely inhabited by one child who wept.

"All out haymakin', o' course," said Pyecroft, thrusting his head into the parlour for an instant. "What's the evolution now?"

"Skirmish till we find a well," I said.

"Hmm! But they wouldn't 'ave left that kid without a chaperon, so to say... I thought so! Where's a stick?"

A bluish and silent beast of the true old sheep-dog breed glided from behind an outhouse and without words fell to work.

Pyecroft kept him at bay with a rake-handle while our party, in rallying- square, retired along the box-bordered brick-path to the car.

At the garden gate the dumb devil halted, looked back on the child, and sat down to scratch.

"That's his three-mile limit, thank Heaven!" said Pyecroft. "Fall in, push-party, and proceed with land-transport o' pinnace. I'll protect your flanks in case this sniffin' flea-bag is tempted beyond 'is strength."

We pushed off in silence. The car weighed 1,200 lb., and even on ball-bearings was a powerful sudorific. From somewhere behind a hedge we heard a gross rustic laugh.

"Those are the beggars we lie awake for, patrollin' the high seas. There ain't a port in China where we wouldn't be better treated. Yes, a Boxer 'ud be ashamed of it," said Pyecroft.

A cloud of fine dust boomed down the road.

"Some happy craft with a well-found engine-room! How different!" panted Hinchcliffe, bent over the starboard mudguard.

It was a claret-coloured petrol car, and it stopped courteously, as good cars will at sight of trouble.

"Water, only water," I answered in reply to offers of help.

"There's a lodge at the end of these oak palings. They'll give you all you want. Say I sent you. Gregory—Michael Gregory. Good-bye!"

"Ought to 'ave been in the Service. Prob'ly is," was Pyecroft's comment.

At that thrice-blessed lodge our water-tank was filled (I dare not quote Mr. Hinchcliffe's remarks when he saw the collapsible rubber bucket with which we did it) and we re-embarked. It seemed that Sir Michael Gregory owned many acres, and that his park ran for miles.

"No objection to your going through it," said the lodge-keeper. "It'll save you a goodish bit to Instead Wick."

But we needed petrol, which could be purchased at Pigginfold, a few miles farther up, and so we held to the main road, as our fate had decreed.

"We've come seven miles in fifty-four minutes, so far," said Hinchcliffe (he was driving with greater freedom and less responsibility), "and now we have to fill our bunkers. This is worse than the Channel Fleet."

At Pigginfold, after ten minutes, we refilled our petrol tank and lavishly oiled our engines. Mr. Hinchcliffe wished to discharge our engineer on the grounds that he (Mr. Hinchcliffe) was now entirely abreast of his work. To this I demurred, for I knew my car. She had, in the language of the road, held up for a day and a half, and by most bitter experience I suspected that her time was very near. Therefore, three miles short of Linghurst, I was less surprised than any one, excepting always my engineer, when the engines set up a lunatic clucking, and, after two or three kicks, jammed.