“ ‘Dog-face has got a winner,’ I heard Blenton say across the table. I may say that I answered to that tactful sobriquet, for reasons into which we need not enter. ‘One Sergeant Trevor in your squadron, old boy,’ he turned to me. ‘I was watching him at the nets to-night.’
“ ‘Is he any good?’ I said.
“ ‘My dear fellow,’ answered Blenton, deliberately, ‘he is out and away the best bat we’ve had in the regiment for years. He’s up to Army form!’
“ ‘Who’s that?’ demanded the commanding officer, sitting up and taking notice at once.
“ ‘Sergeant Trevor in B squadron, Colonel,’ said Blenton. ‘I was watching him this evening at nets. Of course, the bowling was tripe, but he’s in a completely different class to the average soldier cricketer.’
“ ‘Did you talk to him?’ I asked, curiously.
“ ‘I did. And he struck me as being singularly uncommunicative. Asked him where he learnt his cricket, and he hummed and hawed, and finally said he’d played a lot in his village before joining the Army. I couldn’t quite make him out, Dog-face. And why the devil didn’t he play for us out in Jo’burg?’
“ ‘Because he only joined a couple of months before we sailed,’ I answered. ‘Came with that last draft we got.’
“ ‘Well, I wish we had a few more trained in his village,’ said Blenton. ‘We could do with them.’
“After mess, I tackled Philip Blenton in the ante-room.