said. "I saw you with
your missus just now, so I hid--I'm in the next cabin." He indicated the
adjoining compartment with a nod.

"Sit down, old lad. What are you doing here? I thought----" The
speaker broke off abruptly, and his glance strayed involuntarily to the
ground. The new-comer nodded, and, sitting down on the bunk, pushed his
cap back from his forehead.

"That's right." He extended his left leg. "Cork foot. What d'you go on
it, Bunje, eh?" They contemplated the acquisition in silence for a
moment. "I was in a destroyer, you know," pursued the speaker, "and one
of Fritz's shore batteries on the Belgian coast got our range by mistake
one day at dawn. Dusted us down properly." He extended his leg again.
"Hence the milk in the coco-nut, as you might say. However, we had a
makee-learn doctor on board--Surgeon-Probationer, straight out of the
egg, and no end of a smart lad: he dished me up in fine style. I went to
hospital for a bit, and they gave me six months' full-pay sick leave--not
a bad old firm, the Admiralty."

"What then," asked the other, "invalided?"

The visitor nodded. "But about a month ago I fell-in and said I couldn't
kick my heels any longer. Hadn't two to kick, in point of fact!" He
laughed softly at the grim jest. "So they lushed me up to this outfit,
and gave me a job as King's Messenger. I'm carrying despatches between
the Admiralty and the Fleet Flagship. Better'n doing nothing," he added
half-apologetically.

"Quite," agreed Standish gravely: none knew better than he how beloved
had been the career thus abruptly terminated. He wondered, as he met the
speaker's smiling eyes with a sympathetic grin, whether he himself could
have carried it off like this. "But it was rotten luck--I'm----"

The King's Messenger rose. "I've got a drop of whisky somewhere in my
bag," he interrupted. "Come along in there: I can't leave my
despatches--we'll have a yarn."

He limped through the doorway, steadying himself with his hands against
the rocking of the train. Standish followed. Never again, he reflected,
would he follow those broad shoulders in a U.S. "Forward rush" to the
familiar slogan of "_Feet--forwards--feet!_"

"You were wounded, too, last spring, weren't you?" queried the King's
Messenger, burrowing in his suit case for his flask. "Squat down at the
end there--got your glass?" He measured out two portions of whisky and
from the rack produced a bottle of soda. "Sa