Only once since that memorable May evening when he travelled south in a hospital train had Kenneth been in London. That was a fortnight ago, when he had business at the Admiralty. Just outside the old entrance he encountered a burly, bearded man with one arm in a sling and the D.S.O. ribbon on his breast. It was Morpeth, very much down in the mouth despite the fact that he had been decorated by his Sovereign. The grievance was that "Tough Geordie's" sea-days were over. Neither the Royal Navy nor the Mercantile Marine has a use for a one-armed man. It was useless to remind My Lords that Nelson was one-armed, besides possessing only one eye. Autres temps, autres moeurs. So Morpeth was given a pension for wounds and sent out to join the vast and ever-increasing throng of wounded heroes, to jog along as best he might on a sum that, taking into consideration the low purchasing power of a "Bradbury," was barely sufficient to keep his head above water.
Apart from that chance meeting, Meredith had heard from Morpeth but twice. The R.N.R. officer was a bad correspondent at the best of times, and now, hampered by physical disabilities, he simply could not bring himself to put pen to paper.
It was different as far as Wakefield was concerned. Wakefield, too, had passed through some critical moments during his prolonged stay in hospital, but from the first, even though he had to correspond through the medium of a hospital nurse, he never failed to keep in touch with his late subordinate and brother-in-arms. He had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and had been appointed to M.L. 1499, also attached to the Scapa Flow Base.
The two R.N.V.R. officers had arranged to travel north together; but the hour fixed for the departure of the train was drawing nigh, and Wakefield, who usually made a point of being half an hour too early rather than half a minute too late, had not yet put in an appearance.
Already Meredith had secured a doubleberth sleeping compartment and had handed his compact kit over to the care of the guard. The passengers were exclusively Naval, Military, or Air Force. Bluejackets, holding their scanty kit in black silk scarves, were conversing with khaki-clad Tommies equipped with rifles and bayonets, "tin-hats" and other paraphernalia associated with that delectable region known as "The Front." There were men, too, clad in tropical uniform and wearing sun-helmets, whose appearance contrasted vividly with a party of fur-clad Engineers about to leave for Northern Russia. Amongst the officers, who for the most part had already secured their seats and had bought evening papers from the loud-yelling newsboys, could be seen every diversity of uniform. Naval rig predominated, but there were khaki-clad infantry officers, kilted Highlanders, R.A.F.'s in gorgeous if unserviceable light blue, slouch-hatted Australians and Canadians, flat brim-hatted New Zealanders, and a solitary subaltern of an Indian regiment wearing a turban. One and all were going to be shed from the crowded train at various stopping-places between King's Cross and Thurso, their diverse ways governed by an all-absorbing factor—to break for ever the menace of Prussian Kaiserism.
Everywhere a cheerful spirit pervaded. The end was in sight. After over four years of desperate fighting, in which there were dark periods when it seemed as if Germany was having much her own way, there were unmistakable signs that the Hun was "cracking up." On the naval side things had been going steadily worse with her since the glorious operations that resulted in the blocking of Zeebrugge and Ostend. Almost from that time the submarine menace paled. Convoys of merchantmen were continuously arriving unscathed at British ports; a huge American army had been successfully transported across the Atlantic, and the U-boats had been powerless to say them nay. Rumours, that were subsequently confirmed, were in the air that the Hun High Seas Fleet had been ordered out to commit felo-de-se under the guns of the Grand Fleet, and that the crews had declined to sacrifice their lives even to please the whim of the arch cannon-fodder provider, the Emperor Wilhelm.
And on land things were no better for the Hun. His stupendous attempt to break through at Arras had failed. Another desperate effort against Paris had resulted in his masses being thrown back dispirited and disorganised. All along the line between the North Sea and the Swiss Frontier the field-grey troops were being pushed back, while elsewhere their allies—Turkish, Austrian, and Bulgarian—were practically "down and out."
Amongst the naval people the news was received phlegmatically. Rumours of a German naval mutiny had been received before—perhaps it was a move on Germany's part to throw us off our guard. It seemed impossible to think otherwise but that the Hun High Seas Fleet would put to sea as a forlorn hope. British naval officers generously tried to credit the Germans with a sense of honour approaching their own; hence they could not expect anything else but a big scrap before the end. It would be a foregone conclusion, but it would give the Huns a chance to vindicate themselves and the British to clinch the opportunity that they had missed at Jutland.
While his fellow passengers were discussing the world-wide situation in general and the naval one in particular, Meredith was still keeping watch for his chum Wakefield. Almost at the last minute Wakefield hove in sight, cheery and smiling as of yore, having in tow a bearded, greatcoated individual whom Meredith recognised as "Tough Geordie Morpeth."
"Let's get aboard," exclaimed Wakefield briskly. "We can kag afterwards.... Yes; Morpeth's coming along, too.... Never mind about a porter; we'll sling this gear into the corridor. In you hop, Morpeth. My word! it was a narrow shave, eh, what?"