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THE FRITZ STRAFERS

"COMING EVENTS..."

"QUITE right for once, Moke. Young brothers are unmitigated nuisances," declared Hugh Holcombe. "If I hadn't been such a silly owl to let my young brother try his luck with my motor-bike, I wouldn't be sitting here in this muggy carriage. Any sign of Slogger yet?"

The youth addressed as Moke thrust his bulky head and shoulders out of the open window and made a deliberate survey of the road that ran steadily down the hillside until it merged into the station yard of the little town of Lynbury.

It was a case of somewhat regrettable inadvertence when fifteen years previously Sylvester's parents had had him christened in the name of Anthony Alexander; for when, in due course, the lad entered Claverdon College the fellows, the moment they saw his initials painted boldly upon his trunk and tuck-box, dubbed him "Moke," and the name stuck like tar.

Hugh Holcombe was cast in a different mould. Except in point of age there was little in common between the two lads. Holcombe was tall for his age, and possessed the appearance of a budding athlete. Although in mufti--he was spending the last week of the Christmas vacation with an uncle at Southsea before rejoining Osborne College--there was a certain self-assurance that the natural outcome of a training that inspires manliness, self-reliance, and courage from the first moment that an embryo Nelson sets foot in the cradle of the Royal Navy.

Slogger must wait until he enters this narrative. Sufficient to say that the three lads--as yet mere strands in the vast fabric of Empire--were to make their mark in the titanic struggle that was to convulse the whole world, each working in a different manner to one and the same just purpose.

It was in those halcyon, far-off days preceding the fateful 4th day of August 1914. To be more precise, it was January of the preceding year. Little did hundreds, nay thousands, of doting parents then imagine that on land and sea, in the air and in the waters under the earth, would their sons risk, and often give their young lives, for King, Country, and Freedom's Cause.

"Not the suspicion of a sign," replied Sylvester to his companion's inquiry. "He'll miss the train if he doesn't buck up. Here's the guard toddling along the platform."

"Hope that silly cuckoo of a Slogger won't miss it!" exclaimed Holcombe, resting his hands on the Moke's back and peering through the narrow space betwixt the latter's broad shoulders and the top of the carriage window. "He promised he'd bring an accumulator along with him, and I want to have some fun with the beastly thing during the next few days."

It was nearly eight o'clock in the morning. The sun was on the point of rising, while over the town the retreating shadow of night still contended with the grey dawn of another day. Passengers in twos and threes, most of them carrying luggage, were hurrying towards the station in the knowledge that the 8 a.m., although it was usually later in starting, sometimes did steam out at five minutes to the hour. Still no signs of Slogger.

"Dash it all, the train's starting!" exclaimed the Moke, as a cloud of white vapour drifted from under the carriages.

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