Peter heard a little chuckle behind, and glanced round to see Donovan staring at him with amusement written all across his face. "You'll do, padre," he said, taking a pipe from his pocket and beginning to fill it. Peter smiled and leant back. Probably for the first time in five years he forgot for a moment what sort of a collar it was around his neck.
Sitting there, he began to enjoy himself. The sea glittered in the sun and the Lees stretched out opposite him across the shining gulf. Sea-birds dipped and screamed. On his left, Major Bevan was talking to a flying man, and Peter glanced up with him to see an aeroplane that came humming high up above the trees on the cliff and flew out to sea.
"Damned fine type!" said the boy, whose tunic, for all his youth, sported wings. "Fritz can't touch it yet. Of course, he'll copy it soon enough, or go one better, but just at present I think it's the best out. Wish we'd got some in our circus. We've nothing but …" and he trailed off into technicalities.
Peter found himself studying Donovan, who lay back beyond Jenks turning the pages of an illustrated magazine and smoking. The eyes interested him; they looked extraordinarily clear, but as if their owner kept hidden behind them a vast number of secrets as old as the universe. The face was lined—good-looking, he thought, but the face of a man who was no novice in the school of life. Peter felt he liked the Captain instinctively. He carried breeding stamped on him, far more than, say, the Major with the eyeglass. Peter wondered if they would meet again.
The siren sounded, and a bustle began as people put on their life-belts. "All life-belts on, please," said a young officer continually, who, with a brassard on his arm, was going up and down among the chairs. "Who's that?" asked Peter, struggling with his belt.
"Some poor bloke who has been roped in for crossin' duty," said Jenks. "Mind my chair, padre; Bevan and I are going below for a wet. Coming, skipper?"
"Not yet," said Donovan; "the bar's too full at first for me. Padre and
I'll come later."
The others stepped off across the crowded deck, and Donovan pitched his magazine into Bevan's chair to retain it.
"You're from South Africa?" queried Peter.
"Yes," replied the other. "I was in German West, and came over after on my own. Joined up with the brigade here."