In May Dick Starkley made the great move of his young life. He was now seventeen years old and sound and strong. He saw that Peter could not get away with his battalion—that, unless something unexpected happened, the Second Canadian Division would get away without a Starkley of Beaver Dam.
So he did the unexpected thing: he went away to St. John without a word, introduced himself to Sgt. Dave Hammer as Peter's brother, added a year to his age and became a member of the 26th Battalion. He found Frank Sacobie there, already possessed of all the airs of an old soldier.
Dick sent a telegram to his father and a long, affectionate, confused letter to his mother. His parents understood and forgave and went to St. John and told him so—and Peter sent word that he, too, understood; and Dick was happy. Then with all his thought and energy and ambition he set to work to make himself a good soldier.
Peter did not grumble again about his sick leave. His wound healed; and as the warm days advanced he grew stronger with every day. He had been wounded in the performance of his duty as surely as if a German had fired the shot across the mud of No Man's Land; so he accepted those extra months in the place and life he loved with a gratitude that was none the less deep for being silent.
In June the Battalion embarked for England, in strength eleven hundred noncommissioned officers and men and forty-two officers. After an uneventful voyage of eleven days they reached Devenport, in England, on the twenty-fourth day of the month. The three other battalions of the brigade had reached England a month before; the 26th joined them at the training camps in Kent and immediately set to work to learn the science of modern warfare. They toiled day and night with vigor and constancy; and before fall the battalion was declared efficient for service at the front.
Both Dick Starkley and Frank Sacobie throve on the hard work. The musketry tests proved Sacobie to be one of the best five marksmen in the battalion. Dick was a good shot, too, but fell far below his friend at the longer ranges. In drill, bombing and physical training, Dick showed himself a more apt pupil than the Malecite. At trench digging and route marching there was nothing to choose between them, in spite of the fact that Sacobie had the advantage of a few inches in length of leg. Both were good soldiers, popular with their comrades and trusted by their officers. Both were in Dave Hammer's section and Mr. Scammell's platoon.
One afternoon in August Henry Starkley turned up at Westenhanger, on seven days' leave from France. He looked years older than when Dick had last seen him and thinner of face, and on his left breast was stitched the ribbon of the military cross. He obtained a pass for Dick and took him up to London. They put up at a quiet hotel off the Strand, at which Henry had stopped on his frequent week-end visits to town from Salisbury Plain. As they were engaged in filling in the complicated and exhaustive registration form the hall porter gave Henry three letters and told him that a gentleman had called several times to see him.
"What name?" asked Henry.
"That he didn't tell me, sir," replied the porter, "but as it was him wrote the letters you have in your hand you'll soon know, sir."
Henry opened one of the envelopes and turned the inclosure over in quest of the writer's signature. There it was—J. A. Starkley-Davenport. All three letters were from the same hand, penned at dates several weeks apart. They said that before her marriage the writer's mother had been a Miss Mary Starkley, daughter of a London merchant by the name of Richard Starkley. Richard Starkley, a colonial by birth with trade connections with the West Indies, had come from Beaver Dam in the province of New Brunswick. The letters said further that their writer had read in the casualty lists the name of Lieut. Henry Starkley of the Canadian Engineers, and that after diligent inquiry he had learned that this same officer had registered at the Canadian High Commissioner's office in October, 1914, and given his London address as the Tudor Hotel. Failing to obtain any further information concerning Henry Starkley, the writer had kept a constant eye on the Tudor Hotel. He begged Mr. Henry Starkley to ring up Mayfair 2607, without loss of time, should any one of these letters ever come to his hand.