“Are they officially on board the Rangoon?” asked Padre Monty.

“Officially they are,” sighed Jimmy Doon, “but that’s all.  However, I expect it’s enough.”

“Well, your draft is better off than I am,” said Monty.  “It at least exists officially, whereas I’m missing.  I haven’t officially arrived at Devonport.  The War Office will probably spend months and reams of paper (which is getting scarce) in looking for me.  But I don’t suppose it matters.”

“Oh, what does anything matter?” grumbled Jimmy Doon.  “We shall all be dead in a month—­all my draft and you and I; and that’ll save the War Office a lot of trouble and a lot of paper.”  He trifled with a piece of bread, and concluded wearily:  “Besides this unseemly war will be over in six months.  The Germans will have us beaten by then.”

At this point the other passenger at the table gave us a shock by suddenly disclosing his identity.  He put a monocle in his eye, summoned a steward, and explained: 

“This is my seat at meals—­what.  Do you see, steward?  And understand, there’ll be the most awful bloody row, if I’m not looked after properly.”

Major Hardy dropped the monocle on his chest and apologised to Monty:  “Sorry, padre.”  Then he took the menu from the steward, and, having replaced his monocle and read down a list of no less than fourteen courses, announced: 

“Straight through, steward—­what.”

The steward seemed a trifle taken aback, but concealed his emotion and passed the menu to Jimmy Doon.  Mr. Doon, it was clear, found in this choosing of a dish an intellectual crisis of the first order.

“Oh, I don’t know, steward, damn you,” he sighed.  “I’ll have a tedious lemon sole.  No—­as you were—­I’ll, have a grilled chop.”  And, quite spent with this effort, he fell to making balls out of pellets of bread and playing clock golf with a spoon.

During the meal Major Hardy and Padre Monty talked “France,” as veterans from the Western Front will continue to do till their generation has passed away.

“I was wounded at Neuve Chapelle—­what,” explained the Major.  “Sent to a convalescent home in Blighty.  Discharged as fit for duty the day we heard of the landing at Cape Helles.  Moved Heaven and earth, and ultimately the War Office, to be allowed to go to Gallipoli.”

(Major Hardy might have said more.  He might have told us that he had been recommended once for a D.S.O., and twice for a court-martial, because he persisted in devoting his playtime to sharpshooting and sniping in No Man’s Land, and to leading unauthorised patrols on to the enemy’s wire.  But it was not till later that we were to learn why he had been known throughout his Army Corps as Major Fool-hardy.)

Padre Monty had not been wounded, it seemed, but only buried alive.