"
"It takes 'em at all ages. Look at--you know," said Pyecroft.
"Who?" I asked.
"A service man within eighteen months of his pension, is the party you're
thinkin' of," said Pritchard. "A warrant 'oose name begins with a V.,
isn't it?"
"But, in a way o' puttin' it, we can't say that he actually did desert,"
Pyecroft suggested.
"Oh, no," said Pritchard. "It was only permanent absence up country
without leaf. That was all."
"Up country?" said Hooper. "Did they circulate his description?"
"What for?" said Pritchard, most impolitely.
"Because deserters are like columns in the war. They don't move away from
the line, you see. I've known a chap caught at Salisbury that way tryin'
to get to Nyassa. They tell me, but o' course I don't know, that they
don't ask questions on the Nyassa Lake Flotilla up there. I've heard of a
P. and O. quartermaster in full command of an armed launch there."
"Do you think Click 'ud ha' gone up that way?" Pritchard asked.
"There's no saying. He was sent up to Bloemfontein to take over some Navy
ammunition left in the fort. We know he took it over and saw it into the
trucks. Then there was no more Click--then or thereafter. Four months ago
it transpired, and thus the _casus belli_ stands at present," said
Pyecroft.
"What were his marks?" said Hooper again.
"Does the Railway get a reward for returnin' 'em, then?" said Pritchard.
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