"By Jove, Graham!" exclaimed the Scoutmaster. "How's that for character-reading? The young blighter is an escaped Borstal boy. I wonder what he was sent to Portland for?"
"Better not ask him," rejoined Mr. Graham. "He might give trouble. It's rather a wonder he didn't get the wind up when we commenced semaphoring."
"Perhaps he is in a bit of a funk," said Mr. Armitage. "However, that's his affair. I'm not going to spoil his few hours of unauthorized liberty unless he cuts up rough. There's Salcombe, lads. A snug harbour but a tricky place to enter. Bolt Head's just on our starboard bow. The next few miles is a magnificent bit of coast."
The Olivette was now fairly close to shore, about half a mile from the frowning cliffs of Devon. Fascinated by the sight of the surf-lashed shore, stupendous walls of rock, the Southend Sea Scouts gazed stolidly shorewards, while Mr. Armitage pointed out the various objects of interest between Bolt Head and Bolt Tail, and gave accounts of several notable shipwrecks that had taken place within the limits of the two forbidding headlands.
Then across Bigbury Bay, almost out of sight of land, the Olivette ploughed her way against a foul tide. The best of the day had gone. Misty-looking clouds were banking up in the west'ard with a promise of rain before very long.
"That doesn't look very inviting for a tramp across Cornwall," remarked Mr. Graham.
"It may be only local," replied Mr. Armitage. "Without casting any aspersions upon the attractions of Plymouth, I can assert that I have put into the Sound on at least half a dozen widely different occasions, and I have never yet done so in sunshine. It has always been raining pretty heavily."
Two hours later the Olivette rounded the peaked, isolated rock, known as the Mewstone, and the whole of Plymouth Sound with its magnificent breakwater came into view. In spite of the fact that it was raining heavily, all the Sea Scouts not actually on duty in the wheelhouse and engine-room kept on deck to enjoy the view, for enjoyable it was even in the now steady downpour. Gregory too was up for'ard gazing, rather apprehensively it seemed, at the Hoe and Smeaton's Tower.
"I feel sorry for that chap," confided Jock Findlay to his chum Desmond. "I think he knows that there's something in the wind. He has hardly spoken a word since we passed Prawle Point."
"It's rough luck being pitchforked into the arms of a policeman," said Desmond. "Of course, we don't know what he was sent to Portland for, but I'm hanged if I like the idea of pushing him back. We can't help it, but it looks like a low-down trick on our part."