Suddenly the pilot started again, and opened his eyes. As he did so, he caught sight of the face bending over him, and instinctively the words fell from his lips, as from the mouth of a child: "Tim Burkitt!" "Yes, Dastral, you are right. It is Tim Burkitt. God has sent me to watch over you, and to nurse you back to life." Tim, who had been serving latterly as ward attendant on board one of His Majesty's hospital ships conveying the wounded men back to Blighty, had heard of Dastral's accident, and had been to fetch him from the base hospital, having secured permission from the D.D.M.S. to have him under his own special care. "There, that will do, Dastral. I did not intend to let you recognise me until you were out of all danger." Despite his orders, however, Dastral would persist in half-raising his hand, to grasp that of his friend. And, seeing the ribbon on his tunic, he gasped: "Tim, where did you win that?" "Hush! That will keep till another time," replied Tim. "But, Tim, how came you here?" In a few words the attendant told him how he had at last, after persistent effort, gained a footing in the services, and, though only the humble post of sick-ward attendant on a hospital ship had been offered to him, yet he had gladly accepted it. "And so you see by a stroke of luck you happen to be one of my patients. And I am going to take you all the way home." "Home! Blighty! Home!" murmured the patient. "Are we on the way home?" "Yes, we are on the way to Blighty. We are now only a matter of twenty miles from the Nab Light at the eastern end of the Isle of Wight. In another two hours we should be in Southampton Water." "Thank God!" replied Dastral quietly and reverently, as he closed his eyes, bewildered by all he had heard. But he opened them again shortly, and said: "Tim, war is a ghastly thing. I hope it will soon be over, for it turns brave men who might otherwise be friends into enemies. But I am happy to think that you have won that decoration." "Tut, tut! Dastral," replied the other. "Do you know that the King has conferred upon you the honour of a C.B., and also made you a Wing Commander. Do you know also that the whole country is talking of your fight with Himmelman, the German air-fiend?" "Tim, I would willingly shed all these honours if I could bring back my brave comrades, who are buried in unknown graves out yonder. Alas, I shall never see them again," and here Dastral closed his eyes to keep back the tears that tried to force themselves out, and to gulp down a sob. Then he fell fast asleep, and Tim let him sleep on, till they had passed the Nab Light, and steamed along by the Southsea Forts, and Spithead, and Portsmouth, and had entered the lower reaches of Southampton Water. Then again Dastral opened his eyes, and called softly for Tim.