“I expect so. I used to get horribly annoyed with young Wilson, in my platoon, but I’d like uncommonly to know how the little beggar is shaping now, and who has the handling of him. He’s a queer-tempered, obstinate, cross-grained varmint, but he’ll do anything for you if you treat him like a human being. Only you can’t drive him. I hope we’ll get our old crowds back—though I’m afraid it’s rather too much to hope for.”
“I’m afraid so,” Wally agreed. “My corporal was a dear old thing; only he would persist periodically in forgetting that I was grown-up. I don’t blame them—the old N.C.O.’s know ever so much more than we do. That chap had been all over the world, and seen no end of service; he’d have had a commission if he could have kept off beer. It was when he was drunk that he used to think I was his small boy. I had my own troubles with him”—and Wally grinned reminiscently.
“They were such a good lot of fellows,” Jim said. “Oh, it will be pretty good to get back; and to see Anstruther and Garrett and Blake, and all the crowd again, and make them fight their battles over for us. It’s one of the annoying parts about our dose of gas that I haven’t the slightest recollection of our own little scrap. I used to remember the beginning; but now my only memory is of you sitting on a biscuit-tin eating bully, and I’m sure that happened before the fun began. I wonder if the other fellows will have much to talk about?”
“Well, we won’t, anyhow,” Wally said. “Ireland isn’t the place for adventures. Let’s hope we may get some good specimens of our own in Flanders—and in Germany—and then we needn’t envy any of ’em.”
“Rather!” assented Jim. “I say, suppose we move on—the sun isn’t as hot as it was, or I’m colder than I was; and anyhow, we may as well explore.” He sprang up, followed by his chum, and they strolled across the rocks.
The party had been at Carrignarone for three days, and there was, as yet, no word from Con, who had departed on an outside car, en route to Belfast, to obtain what was necessary to restore the motor to health. Not that anyone minded the delay. The little inn was clean and well-kept; the sea-fishing was good, and the bathing perfect; while the shore, with its alternating strand and rock, was a never-failing fascination. Wally and Jim had made friends with an old fisherman, who had taken them out with him very early that morning; and luck had been so good that they had come in some hours earlier than they were expected, so that the big haul they brought could be taken to the railway and landed in Dublin in time for the next morning’s market. At the inn, they found that Sir John, Norah, and Mr. Linton had gone out, leaving no word of their movements; so the boys, after an enormous lunch, had departed to explore the shore farther than their previous walks had led them, until the long narrow inlet had tempted them to bathe.
They strolled round the beach from the point where they had dived, now and then picking up a curious shell or some sea-treasure that might be included in the parcels that went periodically to Billabong, where Brownie would have cherished the veriest rubbish if only her nurslings had gathered it for her. The tide was almost out, and at the farther headland the rocks lay uncovered for a long way, full of alluring rock-pools, gleaming with sea-anemones. It was impossible to round the point, however, for it was higher than the other headland, and the water roared at its base, even at low tide; so they strolled back across the rocks, looking for the nearest place where it would be possible to climb up and cross the point.
The crags above them grew more accessible presently, and they scrambled up, slipping and clambering until they found themselves on a jutting rock with a wide flat surface, which, bathed in sunshine, invited them to stop and rest. Loose fragments of rock lay about the flat top, and Wally perched on one, but rose hastily.
“That thing wriggled under me,” he said, “It’s just on the balance: I believe I could push it over.”
“ ‘That Master Wally have the mischieviousness of ten boys,’ as Brownie used to say,” Jim remarked, lazily. “Sit down, and don’t play tricks with the landscape.”