"Hear, hear! I second that," agreed Stirling. "No more 'shop'. We'll get plenty of that in a few weeks' time. I fancy My Lords won't let us kick our heels in idleness for long, and honestly, the sooner we settle down to business the better."
The three chums were Sub-lieutenants, homeward bound from a portion of a certain group of islands off the coast of New Guinea, having till recently the high-sounding title of the Bismarck Archipelago. The youthful but none the less glorious Australian Navy had quickly changed the colour of that portion of the map, but the climate was a more formidable foe than the former German garrison. Thus the three young officers, who had been "lent" to the recently-formed navy, had the misfortune to be stricken with fever.
After a long convalescence, which by a
