se concerned shocked nerve-centres and reflex
actions. "That's all right," interrupted the thoroughly startled James
(sometime wing three-quarter for the United Services XV.), "but what
defeats me is not being able to cross a London street without 'coming
over all of a tremble'! An' when I try to light a cigarette"--he
extended an unsteady hand--"look! . . . I'm as fit as a fiddle,
really. Only the Medical Department won't pass me for service afloat.
An' I want to get back, d'you see? There's a super-Dreadnought
commissioning soon----"

The specialist wrote cabalistic signs on a piece of paper. "Bracing
climate--East Coast for preference. . . . Plenty of exercise. Walk.
Fresh air. Early hours. Come and see me again in a fortnight, and get
this made up. That's all right"--he waved aside James's proffered
guineas. "Don't accept fees from naval or military. . . . Least we
can do is to mend you quickly. 'Morning. . . ."

James descended the staircase, and passed a tall, lean figure in soiled
khaki ascending, whom the public (together with his wife and family)
had every reason to suppose was at that moment in the neighbourhood of
Ypres.

"If it weren't for those fellows I couldn't be here," was his greeting
to the specialist. He jerked his grey, close-cropped head towards the
door through which Thorogood had just passed.

2

A ramshackle covered cart laden with an assortment of tinware had
stopped on the outskirts of the village. The owner, a bent scarecrow
of a fellow, was effecting repairs to his nag's harness with a piece of
string. Evening was setting in, and the south-east wind swept a grey
haze across the coast road and sombre marshes. The tinker completed
first-aid to the harness, and stood at the front of the cart to light
his lamps. The first match blew out, and he came closer to the body of
the vehicle for shelter from the wind.

At that moment a pedestrian passed, humming a little tune to himself,
striding along through the November murk with swinging gait. It may
have been that his voice, coming suddenly within range of the mare's
ears, conveyed a sound of encouragement. Perhaps the lights of the
village, twinkling out one by one along the street, suggested stables
and a nosebag. Anyhow, the tinker's nag threw her weight suddenly into
the collar, the wheel of the cart passed over the tinker's toe, and the
tinker uttered a sudden exclamation.

In the circumstances it was a pardon