e
knew, as he sat looking down upon the fragile atom in the bed, that he
could kill her with the pressure of a finger.

But there was no way of making Janie go back on her decision once her
mind was made up. "If there's a war, you orter be fightin'," she added.
"There's prospecks . . ." Her weak voice was almost inaudible, and the
nurse was coming down the ward towards them.

Nosey lifted the hot, dry little claw to his lips. "If you sez I gotter
go, I'll go," and rose to his feet.

"'Course you gotter go. The King sez so, an' I sez so. Don't you get
worritin' about me; I'll be all right when you comes 'ome wiv yer medals.
. . ."

Nosey caught the nurse's eye and tiptoed out of the ward. Janie turned
her face to the Valley of the Shadow.

VI

AN OFF-SHORE WIND

The circular rim of the fore-top took on a harder outline as the sky
paled at the first hint of dawn.

From this elevation it was possible to make out the details of the
ships astern, details that grew momentarily more distinct. Day,
awakening, found the Battle Fleet steaming in line ahead across a
smooth grey sea. The smoke from the funnels hung like a long dark
smear against the pearly light of the dawn; but as the pearl changed to
primrose and the primrose to saffron, the sombre streamers dissolved
into the mists of morning.

Somewhere among the islands on our starboard bow a little wind awoke
and brought with it the scent of heather and moist earth. It was a
good smell--just such a smell as our nostrils had hungered for for many
months--and it stirred a host of vagrant memories as it went sighing
past the halliards and shrouds.

It was the turn of the Indiarubber Man (with whom I had shared the
night's vigil aloft) to snatch a "stretch off the land" with his back
against the steel side of our erie [Transcriber's note: eyrie?]. He
shifted his position uneasily, and the hood of his duffel-suit fell
back: his face, in the dawning, looked white and tired and unshaven.
Cinders had collected in the folds of the thick garment as wind-blown
snow lies in the hollows of uneven ground.

As I stood looking down at him an expression of annoyance passed across
his sleeping countenance.

"Any old where----" he said in a clear, decisive voice. "Down a
rabbit-hole . . ."

And I laughed because the off-shore wind had fluttered the same page in
the book of pleasant memories that we both shared. The petulant
expression passed from his face, a