On the following Tuesday, 28th July, at ten-forty-three A.M. precisely, Pincher left the cottage to buy a packet of cigarettes at the village shop. Albert, his youngest brother, aged five, clutching a penny with which he proposed to purchase two sticks of glutinous but very succulent pink nougat, accompanied him. They were away exactly fourteen minutes, and on their return found Mrs Martin, fresh from her wash-tub and with her arms covered in soapsuds to the elbows, bubbling over with suppressed excitement. She was gazing in a perturbed manner at a telegram; for, to the Martin ménage, the arrival of an orange envelope was a matter of some importance. It generally spelt trouble. The last one had arrived over a year before to announce that Mrs Martin's sister had been run over by an omnibus.
''Ullo, ma!' Pincher exclaimed, noticing his parent's agitated condition; 'wot's th' racket?'
'This 'ere's just come,' she said excitedly, handing the telegram across with very damp fingers. 'For you, it is. You've got to go back to the ship at once!'
'Go back!' he echoed indignantly, taking the offending missive. 'My leaf ain't up till fu'st train ter-morrer mornin'!'
'Ye'd best read it, son,' remarked the lady, wiping her arms on her apron. 'See for yerself.'
Pincher did so. 'Gosh!' he exclaimed with a whistle of surprise, 'there ain't no bloomin' error abart this 'ere.'
There was not. It was addressed to him personally, and was signed, 'Commanding Officer.' 'Leave cancelled,' it said abruptly, almost brutally. 'Rejoin ship immediately.'
''Strewth! Wot's th' buzz, I wonder?' he murmured, very much puzzled, and looking at the back of the paper as if to find the answer to his question there. 'Wot's it mean?'
'That's wot I'm wonderin',' said his mother. 'Wot does it mean? Ye're not in trouble, are yer?' She had a vague suspicion at the back of her mind that Pincher might have absented himself without leave.
'Trouble! Course I ain't. It ain't that. There's somethin' else in th' wind. One o' these 'ere bloomin' war buzzes, I reckons.' He spoke as if wars and rumours of wars were of everyday occurrence.