Pennell played well too, but very differently.  He was usually bored with his luck or the circumstances, and until you got to know him you were inclined to think he was bored with you.  He was a young-looking man of thirty-five, rather good-looking, an engineer in peace-time who had knocked about the world a good deal, but hardly gave you that impression.  The Australian played poorly.  With curly dark hair and a perpetual pipe, his face was almost sullen in repose, but it lit up eagerly enough at any chance excitement.  Arnold was easily the eldest, a short man with iron-grey hair and very kindly eyes, a man master of himself and his circumstances.  Peter watched him eagerly.  He was likely to see a good deal of him, he thought, and he was glad there would be a padre as well in camp.

Donovan and Ferrars won the game and so the rubber easily, and the former pushed his chair back from the table.  “That’s enough for me, boys,” he said.  “I must trek in a minute.  Well, padre, and what do you think of the Army now?”

“Mixed biscuits rather,” Peter said.  “But I had a rum experience getting here.  You wouldn’t have thought it possible,” and he related the story of the movement order.  At the close, Pennell nodded gloomily.  “Pack of fools they are!” he said.  “Hardly one of them knows his job.  You can thank your lucky stars that the D.A.Q.M.G. had a down on that Colonel What’s-his-name, or it would have taken you another month to get here, probably—­eh, Donovan?”

“That’s so, old dear,” said that worthy, “But I’m hanged if I’d have cared.  Some place, Rouen.  Better’n this hole.”

“Well, at Rouen they said this was better,” said Peter.

Arnold laughed.  “That’s the way of the Army,” he said.  “It’s all much the same, but you would have to go far to beat this camp.”

Pennell agreed.  “You’re right there, padre,” he said.  “This is as neat a hole as I’ve struck.  If you know the road,” he went on to Peter, “you can slip into town in twenty-five minutes or so, and we’re much better placed than most camps.  There’s no mud and cinders here, is there, Donovan?  His camp’s built on cinders,” he added.

“There are not,” said that worthy, rising.  “And you’re very convenient to the hospital here, padre.  You better get Arnold to show you round; he’s a dog with the nurses.”

“What about the acting matron, No. 1 Base?” demanded Arnold.  “He has tea there every Sunday,” he explained to Peter, “and he a married man, too.”

“It’s time I went,” said Donovan, laughing; “all the same, there’s a concert on Tuesday in next week, a good one, I believe, and I’ve promised to go and take some people.  Who’ll come?  Pennell, will you?”

“Not this child, thanks.  Too many nurses, too much tea, and too much talk for me.  Now, if you would pick me out a pretty one and fix up a little dinner in town, I’m your man, old bean.”

“Well, that might be managed.  It’s time we had a flutter of some sort.  I’ll see.  What about you, Graham?  You game to try the hospital?  You’ll have to get to know the ropes of them all, you know.”