A LONG and crowded train stood in Poldene Station prior to setting out upon the last stages of its journey from London to the Trecurnow Naval Base.
It was late in the autumn of 1917, and well into the fourth year of the titanic struggle that will go down to posterity as The Great War.
Save for a few aged male porters, half a dozen women of a type evolved by war-time conditions ("porteresses," a commander called them when hailing for some one to shift his gear from a taxi to the luggage-van), and a few keenly interested Devonshire children, the platform was devoid of the civilian element; but from one end to the other of the cambered expanse of asphalt pavement the down platform was teeming with officers and bluejackets, all only too glad to have the opportunity of stretching their stiff limbs after long and tedious hours of confinement in the train. Men whose moustaches were enough to proclaim them as members of the R.N.R. mingled with the clean-shaven or beardless stalwarts of the pukka navy, while others in salt-stained blue jerseys and sea-boots, hardy fishermen in pre-war days, were now about to fish for deadly catches—drifting mines.
Outside the open door of a carriage, almost at the end of the train, stood two officers. One was a medium-size, dark-featured man whose rank, as denoted by the strip of purple between the gold rings on his cuffs, was that of engineer-lieutenant. The other, a tall, powerfully-built youth—for he was not yet out of his teens—sported the uniform of a sub-lieutenant of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.
"It's a great wheeze—absolutely," declared the engineer-lieutenant, who was explaining a technical matter in detail to his deeply interested companion. "The double-cam action to the interrupted thread is some scheme, what? You follow me?"
"It certainly ought to put the wind up Fritz," admitted the sub. "But there's one point that I haven't yet got the hang of. The sighting arrangements may be all very well, but how about refraction?"
"We make due allowance, my festive," replied the engineer-lieutenant. "You see—hullo, you're not smoking!"
"Quite correct," agreed the junior officer. "Quite correct, Tommy. Matter of fact, like a blamed idiot I left my pouch in the smoking-room and never found it out until I arrived at the station. Too late to buy any off the stalls, you know."
"Cigarette?" The engineer-lieutenant's silver cigarette-case was proffered with the utmost alacrity. "You don't smoke 'em as a rule, I know, but in the harrowing circumstances——"
"Thanks," exclaimed his companion. Then deftly tearing the paper he roiled the liberated weed between the palms of his hands and filled his pipe.