“All right, Dad.  I say,” he exclaimed joyfully, “did you see?  They saluted me!  Did you see?” he said, turning to me.

“I did, Major Peter.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Not a bit of it,” I said, saluting gravely.  “They’ve given you commissioned rank, and, the Army having spoken, I intend in the future to address you as a field-officer.  Of course your father will have to salute you too, now.”

This was quite another aspect of the matter, and commended itself to Peter.  “Right oh!” he said.  And from that time forward I always addressed him as Major Peter.  So did his father, except when he was ordering him to bed.  At such times—­there was a nightly contest on the matter—­the paternal authority could not afford to concede any prerogatives, and Peter was gravely cashiered from the Army, only to be reinstated without a stain on his character the next morning.

“Come up to the Flying-Ground to-morrow, will you?” said Peter.  “I know lots of officers up there.  I’ll introduce you,” he added patronisingly.  Peter had been a bare fortnight at the Base, it being holiday at his preparatory school at Beckenham, and he had already become familiar and domestic with every one in authority from the Base Commandant downwards.  “Thank you,” I said.  “I will.”  He clambered back into bed at a word from his father.  By the side of the bed was a small library.  It consisted of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Cock-House at Fellsgarth, and Newbolt’s Pages from Froissart.  Peter was rather eclectic in his tastes, but they were thoroughly sound.  On the table were the contents of Peter’s pockets, turned out nightly by the express orders of his father, for this is war-time, and the wear and tear of schoolboys’ jackets is a prodigious item of expenditure.  I made a rapid mental inventory of them: 

     (1) A button of the Welsh Fusiliers.

     (2) Some dozen cartridge-cases from a Lewis machine-gun
     requisitioned by Peter from the Flying-Ground.

     (3) A miniature aeroplane—­the wings rather crumpled as though the
     aviator had been forced to make a hurried descent.

     (4) A knife.

     (5) Several pieces of string.

     (6) A coloured “alley.”

     (7) Some cigarette-card portraits, highly coloured, of Lord
     Kitchener, Sir John French, and General Smith-Dorrien.

     (8) A top.

     (9) A conglomerate of chocolate, bull’s-eyes, and acid drops.

For the kit of an officer of field rank in His Majesty’s Army it was certainly a peculiar collection, few or none of these articles being included in the Field Service regulations.  Still, not more peculiar than some of the things with which solicitous friends and relatives encumber officers at the Front.

The next morning we ascended the downs above the harbour, and Peter piloted me to the Flying-Ground.  Here we came upon a huge hangar in which were docked half a dozen aeroplanes, light as a Canadian canoe and graceful as a dragon-fly.  Peter calmly climbed up into one of them and proceeded to move levers and adjust controls, explaining the whole business to me with the professional confidence of a fully certificated airman.