were the most enjoyable.

It was here of a night-time that Hawk and I--sometimes alone,
sometimes with Brockley, or "Cherry Blossom," or "Corporal Mush," or
Sergeant Joe Smith, the sailormen as onlookers and listeners--it was
here we drew diagrams in the sand with our fingers, and talked on
politics and women's rights, marriage and immorality, drink and
religion, customs and habits; of life and death, peace and war.

Sometimes Hawk burst into a rare phrase of splendid composition--well-
balanced rhetoric, not unworthy of a Prime Minister.

At other times he is the buccaneer, the flinger of foul oaths, and
terrible damning curses. But as a rule they are not vindictive, they
have no sting--for Hawk is a forgiving and humble man in reality, in
spite of his mask of arrogance.

A remarkable character in every way, he fell unknowingly into the old
north-country Quaker talk of "thee and thou."

Another minute he gives an order in those hard, calm, commanding words
which, had he had the chance, would have made him, in spite of his
lack of schooling, one of the finest Generals the world could ever
know.

On these occasional gleams of pure leadership he finds the finest
King's English ready to his lips, while at other times he is
ungrammatical, ordinary, but never uninteresting or slow of intuition.

He was a master of slang, and like all strong and vivid characters had