alian who was standing beside Ken
Carrington, turned his head slowly towards the other.

'You talk as if you'd seen fighting,' he remarked in his soft but pleasant
drawl.

Ken paused a moment before replying.

'I have,' he said quietly.

Burney straightened his long body with unusual suddenness.

'The mischief, you have! My word, Ken, you're a queer chap. Here you and I
have been training together these six months, and you've never said a word
of it to me or any of the rest of the crowd.'

'Come to that, I don't quite know why I have now,' answered Ken Carrington
dryly.

Burney wisely made no reply, and after a few moments the other spoke
again.

'You see, Dave, it wasn't anything to be proud of, so far as I'm
concerned, and it brings back the most rotten time I ever had. So it isn't
much wonder I don't talk about it.'

'Don't say anything now unless you want to,' said Burney, with the quiet
courtesy which was part of him.

'But I do want to. And I'd a jolly sight sooner tell you than any one
else. That is, if you don't mind listening.'

'I'd like to hear,' said Burney simply. 'It's always been a bit of a
puzzle to me how a chap like you came to be a Tommy in this outfit. With
your education, you ought to be an officer in some home regiment.'

'That's all rot,' returned Ken quickly. 'I'd a jolly sight sooner be in
with this crowd than any I know of. And as for a commission, that's a
thing which it seems to me a chap ought to win instead of getting it as a
gift.

'But I'm gassing. I was going to tell you how it was that I'd seen
fighting. My father was in the British Navy. He rose to the rank of
Captain, and then had an offer from the Turkish Government of a place in
the Naval Arsenal at Constantinople.'

'From the Turks!' said Burney in evident surprise.

'Yes. Lots of our people were in Turkey in those days. It was a British
officer, Admiral Gamble, who managed all the Turkish naval affairs. That
was before the Germans got their claws into the wretched country.'

'I've heard of Admiral Gamble,' put in Burney. 'Well, what happened then?'

'My father took the job, and did jolly well until the Germans started
their games. Finally they got hold of everything, and five years ago
Admiral Gamble gave up. So did my father, but he had bought land in Turkey
and had a lot of friends there, so he did not go back to England.

'It was that same year, 1910, that he found coal on his land, and applied
for a conc