There were seven others in there, all quiet individuals in plain clothes, who rose and bowed to me when I was brought in, thinking at first, I suppose, that I was Gerald. They looked very relieved when they saw that I wasn’t. Two of them had rosettes of black and green with the stripes horizontal, so I knew why they were there. One very courteous old gentleman put a cigarette between my lips, lighted it with his own, and then slacked off the ropes round my wrists and arms, the sentry, turning round to watch us, simply shrugged his shoulders when my arms were free again, and I commenced whirling them round and round to try and do away with the numbness and the ’pins and needles.’ He just half opened the breech-bolt of his Mauser rifle, pointed very suggestively at the cartridges inside, turned round again, and went on smoking. Somebody offered me an empty cartridge-box and I sat on it, watching the other chaps busy writing things in notebooks or even on their shirt cuffs. It struck me that possibly they were writing their ’wills.’ Well! that was a funny ending to my first day ashore, if you like, though so long as Gerald got clear away I didn’t mind, and so long as Bob and his chum had fetched up at the Club I knew that things would turn out all right. It was jolly hot in that hole of a place, and as the afternoon went on the sun shone straight in through the gratings of the door and it was like an oven. I sweated like a pig. Every now and then I heard a cart rattle across the drawbridge. That generally meant a fresh arrival, some other Horizontal caught, and he’d be shoved in with us. At first I was terribly afraid lest I should see Gerald brought along; but four o’clock came, Gerald evidently hadn’t been caught, and I began to feel quite easy in my mind about him. I did wonder why nobody from the ship had come along, but wasn’t particularly worried. Things would ’pan out’ all right, and this was a rummy enough experience for any one. Just after four o’clock there was great excitement in the courtyard outside. Soldiers ran about hunting for their rifles and formed up behind the saluting guns, trumpets sounded some kind of a ’general salute,’ I heard a lot of horses’ hoofs clattering over the drawbridge, and a few minutes later round the corner stalked the little President and a crowd of officers, the Governor of Los Angelos and his two A.D.C.’s among them. He’d evidently come along to count his day’s ’bag,’ for he walked along the grating looking in at us. My aunt! he had the cruellest eyes I’d ever seen.