spanking the water with the flat of their oars. A red-coated militia-man,
rifle in hand, sat at the bows, and a petty officer at the stern. Between
the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, honey-coloured rocks on the
beach the green water was troubled with shrimp-pink prisoners-of-war
bathing. Behind their orderly tin camp and the electric-light poles rose
those stone-dotted spurs that throw heat on Simonstown. Beneath them the
little _Barracouta_ nodded to the big _Gibraltar_, and the old _Penelope_,
that in ten years has been bachelors' club, natural history museum,
kindergarten, and prison, rooted and dug at her fixed moorings. Far out, a
three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and stern waddled in
from the deep sea.

Said the sentry, assured of the visitor's good faith, "Talk to 'em? You
can, to any that speak English. You'll find a lot that do."

Here and there earnest groups gathered round ministers of the Dutch
Reformed Church, who doubtless preached conciliation, but the majority
preferred their bath. The God who Looks after Small Things had caused the
visitor that day to receive two weeks' delayed mails in one from a casual
postman, and the whole heavy bundle of newspapers, tied with a strap, he
dangled as bait. At the edge of the beach, cross-legged, undressed to his
sky-blue army shirt, sat a lean, ginger-haired man, on guard over a dozen
heaps of clothing. His eyes followed the incoming Atlantic boat.

"Excuse me, Mister," he said, without turning (and the speech betrayed his
nationality), "would you mind keeping away from these garments? I've been
elected janitor--on the Dutch vote."

The visitor moved over against the barbed-wire fence and sat down to his
mail. At the rustle of the newspaper-wrappers the ginger-coloured man