"Phil Courtney! You old horse!"
Courtney turned.
"Frank Sharpless!" he said.
The sight of a khaki uniform was not, in that year nineteen thirty-eight, bo frequent in Cheltenham as it is today. Frank Sharpless, a captain in a Sapper regiment, gleamed with all his buttons.
"You old horse!" he repeated. "What are you doing here? On a job?" "Yes. And you?"
"Leave. I'm visiting my father; he lives here." Sharpless gestured hospitably towards the hotel. "Come in and have one?"
"With pleasure."
In the American Bar upstairs, at a table by the window with pint tankards between them, they regarded each other with real pleasure.
"Phil," said Sharpless, "I'm going to Staff College."
Courtney considered this. "That's good, I suppose?"