“What a life!” said Dick Harrison, under his breath.
“Quite. You know, I had a great friend who went out as A.D.C. to one of your Governors. He had to return after a month, because his father died and he came into the baronetcy, but some day he means to write a book on Australia. That is why I have always, as it were, kept in touch with your great country. I seem to know it so well, though I have never seen it.”
“You do, indeed,” said Blake gravely. “I wish we knew half as much about yours.”
“Ah, but you must let us show it to you. Is it not yours, too? Outposts of Empire: that is what I call you: outposts of Empire. Is it not that that brought you to fight under our flag?”
“Oh, rather,” said Blake vaguely. “But a lot of us just wanted a look in at the fun!”
“Well—you got a good deal for a start,” said Garrett.
“Yes—Abdul gave us all we wanted on his little peninsula. But he’s not a bad fighting-man, old Abdul; we don’t mind how often we take tea with him. He’s a better man to fight than Fritz.”
“He could pretty easily be that,” Garrett said. “It’s one of the worst grudges we owe Fritz—that he’s taken all the decency out of war. It used to be a man’s game, but the Boche made it one according to his own ideas—and everybody knows what they are.”
“Yes,” said Hardress. “I suppose the Boche will do a good deal of crawling to get back among decent people after the war; but he’ll never live down his poison-gas and flame-throwers.”
“And wouldn’t it have been a gorgeous old war if he’d only fought clean!” said Garrett longingly. They drew together and talked as fighting men will—veterans in the ways of war, though the eldest was not much over one-and-twenty.