Jack Villiers was a tall, sparely-built fellow, bronzed, athletic, and moving with a typically nautical roll that one is bound to acquire by three years' acquaintance with the open sea. The only son of a formerly well-to-do Devonshire man, Jack found himself "out of a berth" with precious few prospects of obtaining employment of anything approaching a congenial nature. He had gone straight from a public school into the R.N.V.R and for three years he had risked his life for his country and had had enough experiences of warfare afloat to last a lifetime. He knew how to handle men, to take over responsibility in a tight corner, and generally to steel his nerves and act promptly in emergencies. He had a roof over his head, albeit the enamelled roof of the M.L.'s ward-room; good and ample food, a genial superior officer, and a crew with whom he was undoubtedly popular. His salary was sufficient for his needs, although it compared unfavourably with the wages of the average munition-worker ashore, and generally speaking he had, to quote his own words, "a top-hole time".
But at the end of the three years it was quite another story. The prospect of completing his education at a university had vanished. His second string—a course at an Engineering Training College—had snapped, His father, hard hit by the war, was no longer in a position to render financial aid, and it became apparent that Jack Villiers would have to cut out a line for himself.
The burning question was how? The prospect of a commercial life appalled him. His utter inexperience of the world was against him, and it was doubtful whether, during that period of unrest that almost invariably besets the demobilized man, he could settle to sedentary work. The call of the sea, the craving for spirited and healthy adventure, militated against the prospect of a hum-drum life.
Bobby Beverley was in much the same state—possibly worse. He was additionally hampered by having to provide for his fifteen-year-old brother Dick, who was at present a boarder in a well-known school near Salisbury. Bobby's parents were both dead. Mr. Beverley, taking up a commission in the Army Service Corps, at the age of forty, had been killed in action somewhere in France. His widow survived him by but a few months, while Dick had to be maintained out of a scanty "compassionate allowance ", largely augmented by a considerable portion of his elder brother's Sub-Lieutenant's pay. And now Bobby Beverley was faced with two problems: his own future and that of Dick when the latter left school, which would be at no distant date.
"Let's trot along and have lunch," suggested Villiers. "I know of a decent little show in the High Street. Dash it all! I remembered in time," he added, as he replaced his cap after saluting a lady. "Only just beginning to remember I'm in mufti. Passed Barry's missus this morning, and, by Jove! I was going to salute Navy fashion when I recollected I was out of it. Good old times those, George."
"They were," admitted "George" fervently, accepting without demur the name that for some unaccountable reason is indiscriminately bestowed upon members of the Senior Service. "We had our sticky times, of course. Then we groused like the rest of 'em. But that's a back number. Looking at it retrospectively, it wasn't a bad sort of stunt. And now there's the future."
"There won't be one for you on this old planet if you aren't more careful," interrupted Villiers, as he gripped his chum by the arm and hiked him on to the pavement just in time to escape being run down by a motor-cyclist. "Bless my soul! It's Alec Claverhouse; and on a brand-new 1919 jigger, too."
The recognition was mutual, for the motor-cyclist slowed down and came to a standstill with one foot on the kerb within twenty yards of the spot where he had all but collided with Bobby Beverley.
From what could be seen of him Alec Claverhouse appeared to be a tall, burly fellow. Tall he certainly was, but the burliness was largely deceptive, since he was wearing thick clothing and heavy motor mackintosh overalls. His forehead was concealed by a golf-cap pulled well down, while resting upon the peak were a pair of goggles that were evidently considered by their owner to be necessary adjuncts to the "doggy" appearance of a "speed merchant".
Claverhouse was an ex-lieutenant of the Royal Air Force—or Flying-Officer according to the revised and much criticized style of rank. He had been demobilized for more than five months, and after a long and wearisome search for a job had taken up a not too lucrative post at a motor-engineering works, part of his duty being to risk his neck and those of others of His Majesty's lieges by testing cars and motor-cycles on the King's highway. Up to the present he had been fairly fortunate in having his licence endorsed but twice, although it was a wonder that the fatal third endorsement had not been recorded. Like a good many other air-pilots Claverhouse, used to travelling at 120 miles an hour, found that a paltry twenty over the ground was a mere crawl.