"Time, old man," announced Rollo, for during the animated conversation the minutes fled with astonishing rapidity. "It's nearly three o'clock."
"You'll both come to see us again whenever you have the chance, won't you?" asked Thelma, as the two chums bade the girls farewell. "For the next ten days we are on night duty, so you can call at any hour between eight and eight."
"And if we are asleep," added Yvonne, "tell them to awaken us. I will not be cross at being disturbed, and I do not think Thelma will be."
"Ripping girl, your sister, old man," remarked Rollo enthusiastically, as the twain hurried towards the staff office.
"Is she?" asked Kenneth absent-mindedly. He was thinking deeply of someone else.
CHAPTER XXVI
Self-accused
"We've a few minutes to spare," observed Kenneth, "so I'll get those cigars for Private Labori. There's a swagger shop just across the road."
In spite of the threatened bombardment of Antwerp the population was calm. It was a case of "business as usual". The cafés and shops were doing a good trade; the price of provisions, notwithstanding the great influx of refugees, was but a little above the normal. Were it not for the military element in the street, and the occasional visit of a Zeppelin or hostile aeroplane, it would have been difficult to realize that the city was almost within range of the German siege guns, and that day by day those guns were slowly yet steadily advancing.