moment what sort of a collar it was around his neck.

Sitting there, he began to enjoy himself. The sea glittered in the
sun and the Lees stretched out opposite him across the shining gulf.
Sea-birds dipped and screamed. On his left, Major Bevan was talking to
a flying man, and Peter glanced up with him to see an aeroplane that
came humming high up above the trees on the cliff and flew out to sea.

"Damned fine type!" said the boy, whose tunic, for all his youth, sported
wings. "Fritz can't touch it yet. Of course, he'll copy it soon enough,
or go one better, but just at present I think it's the best out. Wish
we'd got some in our circus. We've nothing but ..." and he trailed off
into technicalities.

Peter found himself studying Donovan, who lay back beyond Jenks turning
the pages of an illustrated magazine and smoking. The eyes interested
him; they looked extraordinarily clear, but as if their owner kept hidden
behind them a vast number of secrets as old as the universe. The face was
lined--good-looking, he thought, but the face of a man who was no novice
in the school of life. Peter felt he liked the Captain instinctively. He
carried breeding stamped on him, far more than, say, the Major with the
eyeglass. Peter wondered if they would meet again.

The siren sounded, and a bustle began as people put on their life-belts.
"All life-belts on, please," said a young officer continually, who, with
a brassard on his arm, was going up and down among the chairs. "Who's
that?" asked Peter, struggling with his belt.

"Some poor bloke who has been roped in for crossin' duty," said Jenks.
"Mind my chair, padre; Bevan and I are going below for a wet. Coming,
skipper?"

"Not yet," said Donovan; "the bar's too full at first for me. Padre and
I'll come later."

The others stepped off across the crowded deck, and Donovan pitched his
magazine into Bevan's chair to retain it.

"You're from South Africa?" queried Peter.

"Yes," replied the other. "I was in German West, and came over after on
my own. Joined up with the brigade here."

"What part of Africa?" asked Peter.

"Basutoland, padre. Not a bad place in a way--decent climate, topping
scenery, but rather a stodgy crowd in the camps. One or two decent
people, but the majority mid-Victorian, without a blessed notion except
the price of mealies, who quarrel about nothing half the time, and talk
tuppenny-ha'penny scandal the rest. Good Lord! I wish we had some of the
perisher