“The Navy gives a send-off to the Army,” said Doe; and the voice of one of our Tommies shouted from the stern of the Rangoon: 

“Bye-bye, Jack.  We’ll make a passage for you through them Dardanelles.”

“We will,” whispered Monty.

“We will,” echoed I.

Soon the Rangoon was past the cruiser and abreast of the sinister low hulls of the destroyers that were going to escort us out to sea.  But here, to our surprise, the noise of an anchor’s cable rattling and racing away grated on our ears.

“She’s dropping anchor till the morning,” said Monty.  “All right, then we’ll sit down.”

We placed hammock-chairs on a lonely part of the boat-deck.  I reclined on the right of Monty, and Doe took his chair and placed it on his left.  Just as, in the old world behind the dockyard gates, he would not have been satisfied unless he had been next to Radley, so now he must contrive to have no one between himself and Monty.  Meantime down in the lounge they seemed to have abandoned cock-fighting for music.  A man was singing “Come to me, Thora,” and his voice modified by distance could be heard all over the ship.  The refrain was taken up by a hundred voices:  “Come—­come—­come to me, Thora”; and, when the last note had been finished, the hundred performers were so pleased with their effort that they burst into cheers and whistling and catcalls.  It sounded like a distant jackal chorus.

Now that we were on deck, the spell, which the electric waves of enjoyment had played on me in the lounge, was removed.  Rather, an emptiness and a loneliness began to oppress me, only increased by the rowdyism below.

“It’s going to degenerate into a drunken brawl,” I complained.

Monty turned and slapped me merrily on the knee.  “Don’t be so ready to think the worst of things,” he said.

Something in the gathering darkness and the gathering sadness of this farewell evening made me communicative.  I wanted to speak of things that were near my heart.

“I s’pose just nowadays I am thinking the worst of people.  I’ve seen so much evil since I’ve been in the army that my opinion of mankind has sunk to zero.”

“So’s mine,” murmured Doe.

“And mine has gone up and up and up with all that I’ve seen in the army,” said Monty, speaking with some solemnity.  “I never knew till I joined the army that there were so many fine people in the world.  I never knew there was so much kindliness and unselfishness in the world.  I never knew men could suffer so cheerfully.  I never knew humanity could reach such heights.”

We remained silent and thinking.

“Good heavens!” continued Monty.  “There’s beauty in what’s going on in the lounge.  Can’t you see it?  These boys, a third of them, have only a month or more in which to sing.  Some of them will never see England again.  And all know it, and none thinks about it.  Granted that a few of them are flushed with wine, but, before God, I’ve learnt to forgive the junior subaltern everything—­