In June the Battalion embarked for England, in strength eleven hundred noncommissioned officers and men and forty-two officers. After an uneventful voyage of eleven days they reached Devenport, in England, on the twenty-fourth day of the month. The three other battalions of the brigade had reached England a month before; the 26th joined them at the training camps in Kent and immediately set to work to learn the science of modern warfare. They toiled day and night with vigor and constancy; and before fall the battalion was declared efficient for service at the front. Both Dick Starkley and Frank Sacobie throve on the hard work. The musketry tests proved Sacobie to be one of the best five marksmen in the battalion. Dick was a good shot, too, but fell far below his friend at the longer ranges. In drill, bombing and physical training, Dick showed himself a more apt pupil than the Malecite. At trench digging and route marching there was nothing to choose between them, in spite of the fact that Sacobie had the advantage of a few inches in length of leg. Both were good soldiers, popular with their comrades and trusted by their officers. Both were in Dave Hammer's section and Mr. Scammell's platoon. One afternoon in August Henry Starkley turned up at Westenhanger, on seven days' leave from France. He looked years older than when Dick had last seen him and thinner of face, and on his left breast was stitched the ribbon of the military cross. He obtained a pass for Dick and took him up to London. They put up at a quiet hotel off the Strand, at which Henry had stopped on his frequent week-end visits to town from Salisbury Plain. As they were engaged in filling in the complicated and exhaustive registration form the hall porter gave Henry three letters and told him that a gentleman had called several times to see him. "What name?" asked Henry. "That he didn't tell me, sir," replied the porter, "but as it was him wrote the letters you have in your hand you'll soon know, sir."