"Lucky?" he repeated with a sneer. "I don't see where the luck comes in. I don't envy him."
"Indeed!" said Mark. "You don't envy a chap who is going to be an officer in the British Navy? Why? Oh, but I was forgetting——"
Most of the Sea Scouts in the Lion Patrol were in the habit of overlooking the fact that Max Hilliger was not British. He had been amongst them so long, first as a playfellow, then as a Scout, that they had almost come to think of him as a native of Haddisport. In reality, he was a German, his father, Heinrich Hilliger, being German Vice-Consul in the port, as well as a wealthy fish merchant, doing a big business with Germany.
"Why?" Max repeated, shrugging his shoulders. "It isn't good enough. You fellows are always boasting about your British Navy, as if it were the only fleet on the seas. You seem to forget that Germany has a navy as good, if not better." He laughed derisively. "You'll discover your mistake if Germany and England come to grips. Your boasted navy'll be licked into a cocked hat. Half your cruisers are only fit to be scrapped. Those that are not obsolete couldn't hold their own against the Kaiser's High Sea Fleet."
Here a diversion was caused by the arrival of Midshipman Rodney Redisham, who shook hands with Mr. Bilverstone, and nodded recognition to such of the patrol as he remembered.
"You've grown, Catchpole," he said to one, "and you, too, Quester. Hullo, Max, you here? You've changed since we met last."
"Max has just been arguing that the Kaiser's Fleet is better than ours," remarked the Scout master.
"Germany has some jolly good fighting ships," acknowledged the midshipman; "but I believe our guns have a longer range, and, of course, we've got more ships."
Max Hilliger seemed disposed to dispute the point, but at that moment there came to the sharp ears of the Scouts a peculiar buzzing sound from beyond the houses on the cliff. All eyes were turned expectantly skyward in the one direction. Presently an aeroplane appeared above the trees, and, sinking rapidly, skimmed the level ground of the denes, and alighted like a great bird on a patch of grass within fifty yards of the camp.
At a word from Mr. Bilverstone, two of the Scouts ran forward; but they had hardly reached the machine before the pilot had leapt to his feet.