"And it's not as though I were a new-comer," he continued aggrievedly, "or hadn't brought off one or two fair-sized scoops in the last few years. Hallo, here's Raney!"
Loring arrived a few moments later, and we went into dinner. I had to remind myself that three out of the four of us had travelled up from Chepstow the same morning and that, for all the transitions of the day, war had not yet been declared and Germany had till midnight to frame a reply to our ultimatum.
"Never let it be said that the British race is not adaptable," Loring remarked, when I told him of my intended descent on the Admiralty. "I've spent my afternoon trying to get a commission."
"Any luck?"
"They said I was too old, so I'm to have a staff appointment. Raney and Val Arden will shortly be seen swanking about as Second Lieutenants of the Coldstream Guards. Youth will be served! What the devil does a staff captain have to do?"
"Or a Civil Servant?" I asked.
"Oh, you're all right; you just turn up at twelve and go out to lunch till three. I've been really busy to-day. I've offered House of Steynes and the places at Chepstow and Market Harborough to the War Office as hospitals. Mamma will run one, Amy another and Violet the third——"
"Hospitals?" I murmured.
In the South African War the wounded had died or been nursed back to life thousands of miles from England. It required an effort of imagination to visualize men like Tom Dainton or Summertown, whole and hale one day, under fire forty-eight hours later and perhaps back in England by the end of the week, crawling north from Southampton or Portsmouth by hospital train, broken and maimed for life. Perhaps all our imaginations were working on the same lines, for after a pause Loring changed the subject by asking where O'Rane had spent his time.