"Righto! I'll head him off. He isn't keen to knock up against me." A pause. "How about sitting down my way at meals? You don't look awfully gay at your end."
"I'm not. It would be ripping."
"Good. We'll hang together, eh? Because of India; because we both belong—in a different way. And we'll stick up for that miserable little devil Chandranath."
"Yes—we will." (The glory of that 'we.') "All the same,—I don't much like the look of him"
"No more don't I. He's the wrong 'ját.' He won't stay long—you'll see. But still—he shan't be bullied by Scabs, because he's not the same colour outside. You see that sort of thing in India too. My father's fearfully down on it, because it makes more bad blood than anything; I've heard him say that it's just the blighters who buck about the superior race who do all the damage with their inferior manners. Rather neat—eh?"
Roy glowed. "Your father must be a splendid sort. Is he a soldier?"
"Rather! He's a V.C. He got it saving a Jemadar—a Native Officer."
Roy caught his breath.
"I would awfully like to hear how——"
Desmond told him how....