No corridor connected the carriages to afford opportunities for an interchange of visits for gossip and change of companionship. The occupants of each compartment settled down grimly to endure the monotony of the last stage of their journey according to the dictates of their several temperaments. The King's Messenger, in the seclusion of his reserved compartment, read a novel at intervals and looked out of the window for familiar landmarks that recalled spells of leave in pre-war days, when he tramped on two feet through the heather behind the dogs, or, thigh deep in some river, sent a silken line out across the peat-brown water. In an adjoining compartment a Lieutenant of the Naval Reserve sat at one end facing a Lieutenant of the Volunteer Reserve, while a small Midshipman, effaced behind a magazine, occupied the other corner. Conversation, stifled by ham sandwiches, restarted fitfully, and flagged from train weariness. Darkness pursued the whirling landscape and blotted it out. Sleep overtook the majority of the travellers until the advent of tea baskets at the next stopping place revived them to a more lively interest in life and one another. The Reserve Lieutenant fussed over his like a woman. "I wouldn't trouble if I never smelt whisky again," he confided to his vis-a-vis, "but I couldn't get on without tea." He helped himself to three lumps of sugar. The ice thinned rapidly. "With fresh milk," said the Volunteer Reserve man appreciatively, pouring himself out a cup. "Eh, Jennings?" The Midshipman, thus addressed, grinned and applied himself in silence to a scone and jam. "Ah," said the Reserve man with a kind of tolerance in his tone, such as a professional might extend to the enthusiasm of an amateur in his own trade. "Cows scarce in your job?" "A bit," was the unruffled reply. "We've just brought a Norwegian wind-jammer in from the South of Iceland...." He indicated with a nod the young gentleman in the corner, who was removing traces of jam from his left cheek. "I'm bringing the armed guard back to our base." The Reserve man drank his tea after the manner of deep-sea sailor-men. That is to say, you could shut your eyes and still know: he was drinking hot tea. "Armed Merchant-cruiser squadron?" he queried. Imperceptibly his tone had changed. The Armed Merchant-cruisers maintain the Allied blockade across the trade routes of the Far North: "fancy" sailor-men do not apply for jobs in one of these amazons of the North Sea, and it takes more than a Naval uniform to bring a suspect sailing ship many miles into port for examination under an armed guard of four men.