t Messums. If things are not so black as we think
they are we can step on board again with a light heart, or four light
hearts, if you prefer it, and start again. What do you say, Ron?"

"I should prefer to paddle back," I replied. "It would be a pity to
break up our party immediately. I don't want to be sentimental, or
anything of that sort, but you chaps will agree that we have had some
very jolly times together in the past, and if we are all going to take
out our naturalisation papers in the Atkins family, it is just
possible that we--well, we may not be all together again next year."

"And you, Jack?" asked Dennis.

"Oh, down stream for me," said young Curtis, with what was obviously
an effort at his usual light-hearted manner. "Think of all the beer
we've got left." But the laugh with which he accompanied his remark
was not calculated to deceive any of us, and I am afraid my clumsy
speech had set him thinking again. So we went "ashore," and had a
nightcap at the Magpie, where the flippant youth was announcing to an
admiring circle that if he had half a dozen pals to go with him he
wouldn't mind joining the army himself! Having scoured the village
in an unavailing attempt to round up half a pound of butter, we put
off down stream, and spent the night in the beautiful backwater. No
one suggested cards after supper, and we lay long into the night
discussing, as thousands of other people all over the country were
probably discussing, conscription, espionage, martial law, the
possibilities of invasion, and the probable duration of the war. I
doubt very much if we should have gone to sleep at all had we been
able to foresee the events which the future, in its various ways, held
in store for each of us. But, as it was, we plunged wholeheartedly
into what Tommy Evans described as "Life's new interest." We
positively thrilled at the prospect of army life.

"Think of it," said Jack enthusiastically, "open air all the time.
Nothing to worry about, no work to do, only manual labour. Why, it's
going to be one long holiday. Hang it! I've laid drain-pipes on a
farm--for fun!"

It was past one o'clock when we got out supper. And our appetites lost
nothing by the prospect of hardships which we treated rather lightly,
since we entirely failed to appreciate their seriousness. Jack's
visions of storming ramparts at the point of the bayonet merely added
flavour to his amazing collation of cold beef, ham, brawn, cold fowl,
and pea