"There's one thing, the boys will be snugly in camp by this time and waiting for us," added Selwyn. "We've missed the rotten 'shaking down' process. I wonder what sort of a show Codford is like?"
"You'll find out in due course," replied Fortescue grimly. "I've had some; enough of Salisbury Plain for me, thank you."
"We're not there yet," Malcolm reminded him.
Fortescue looked fixedly at the expanse of sea over which the twilight was spreading. Already the grey outline of the convoying cruiser was blending into invisibility against the gathering mantle of night.
"'That's so," he agreed solemnly.
CHAPTER XII
Running the Gauntlet
"Land in sight!"
The welcome announcement resulted in a rush on deck on the part of the motley throng of Anzacs, South Africans, English troops, and Maoris. Some men eager for a glimpse of the country of their birth, which they had not seen for many a long-drawn month of campaigning in the inhospitable waste of Mesopotamia; others for the first sight of the Mother Country; others out of mere curiosity; while the Maoris peered through the dim light to feast upon the prospects of speedily setting foot on dry land.