It was Frank who spoke. He and Jack were in the latter's cabin on the Essex. The ship was lying at anchor just outside Harwich harbor, riding gently on the swell of the waves.
"Yes, it's all over," said Jack, "and I'm glad."
"So am I," Frank declared; "and yet we have had a good time."
"So we have, of a kind. And still you can't rightly call it a good time when all we have been doing is to seek, kill and destroy."
"But it had to be done," Frank protested.
"Oh, I know that as well as you do. But war is a terrible thing, and the more you see of it the more certain you become that it is all foolishness."
"And yet, you can't permit a big bully to run amuck and smash up things all over the world."
"That's true, of course, and it's exactly what the kaiser and his war machine tried to do. Now, the machine had to be smashed, of course, and it has been smashed. But how long will it take the world to recover? How long will it take to rebuild what has been destroyed in these four years of war?"
Frank shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm not good at conundrums," he replied.