The two R.N.V.R. officers had arranged to travel north together; but the hour fixed for the departure of the train was drawing nigh, and Wakefield, who usually made a point of being half an hour too early rather than half a minute too late, had not yet put in an appearance. Already Meredith had secured a doubleberth sleeping compartment and had handed his compact kit over to the care of the guard. The passengers were exclusively Naval, Military, or Air Force. Bluejackets, holding their scanty kit in black silk scarves, were conversing with khaki-clad Tommies equipped with rifles and bayonets, "tin-hats" and other paraphernalia associated with that delectable region known as "The Front." There were men, too, clad in tropical uniform and wearing sun-helmets, whose appearance contrasted vividly with a party of fur-clad Engineers about to leave for Northern Russia. Amongst the officers, who for the most part had already secured their seats and had bought evening papers from the loud-yelling newsboys, could be seen every diversity of uniform. Naval rig predominated, but there were khaki-clad infantry officers, kilted Highlanders, R.A.F.'s in gorgeous if unserviceable light blue, slouch-hatted Australians and Canadians, flat brim-hatted New Zealanders, and a solitary subaltern of an Indian regiment wearing a turban. One and all were going to be shed from the crowded train at various stopping-places between King's Cross and Thurso, their diverse ways governed by an all-absorbing factor--to break for ever the menace of Prussian Kaiserism. Everywhere a cheerful spirit pervaded. The end was in sight. After over four years of desperate fighting, in which there were dark periods when it seemed as if Germany was having much her own way, there were unmistakable signs that the Hun was "cracking up." On the naval side things had been going steadily worse with her since the glorious operations that resulted in the blocking of Zeebrugge and Ostend. Almost from that time the submarine menace paled. Convoys of merchantmen were continuously arriving unscathed at British ports; a huge American army had been successfully transported across the Atlantic, and the U-boats had been powerless to say them nay. Rumours, that were subsequently confirmed, were in the air that the Hun High Seas Fleet had been ordered out to commit _felo-de-se_ under the guns of the Grand Fleet, and that the crews had declined to sacrifice their lives even to please the whim of the arch cannon-fodder provider, the Emperor Wilhelm. And on land things were no better for the Hun. His stupendous attempt to break through at Arras had failed. Another desperate effort against Paris had resulted in his masses being thrown back dispirited and disorganised. All along the line between the North Sea and the Swiss Frontier the field-grey troops were being pushed back, while elsewhere their allies--Turkish, Austrian, and Bulgarian--were practically "down and out."