"I'm here for fifteen and a half minutes more," replied Peter Barcroft, consulting his wristlet watch. "That is, if the North Eastern Company run their train punctually. That's question one answered. I'm in uniform because I wanted to be, and didn't mean to be out of the fun. What are you doing, might I ask?"
"Same old thing—'the trivial round, the common task' sort of business, you know," answered the Secret Service man.
"But you've not explained: how comes it that you are in khaki?"
"I suppose," replied Barcroft, "it's a case of 'following in father's footsteps' reversed. I'm a mere 'second loot'; my son Billy is now a major, so if I meet him in public I must salute him. This war's been responsible for a lot of funny incidents and conditions, hasn't it?"
"It has," agreed Entwistle. "We've been mixed up in a few together, haven't we? But to get back to the point. I'm curious to know how you managed to get a commission. You told me you were blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. How did you pass the doctor?"
"I passed, or was passed by, three," replied Barcroft proudly. "Bluffed them absolutely. Merely a triumph of mind over matter. I learnt the letters on the sight-testing card off by heart. Perfectly simple, eh, what? I'm in the Marine Section, R.A.F., and incidentally I'm the senior officer in the depot in point of age. I'm on my way to Auldhaig to take some boats round to Sableridge—that's on the South Coast."
"Not X-lighters, by any chance?"
Barcroft stared.
"Yes," he admitted. "What do you know about them?"
Entwistle laughed.