He was taken to B—— and put on board the hospital ship _Saxonia_, with the wounded, doctors and nurses. The port officials had ascertained to their annoyance the day before that a number of floating mines were in the Channel. The authorities argued over the origin of these mines, which the N.T.O. said were those of the Allies, while the M.L.O. thought they were the enemy’s. But there was no argument about one detail: every boat that had come into contact with one had been cut in two and sunk immediately. The captain of the _Saxonia_ was convinced that the Channel was free from mines. He risked it—and was blown up. So Tarkington jumped into the sea. As a good soldier, his instinct was to devote his last minutes to keeping calm, and he swam about quietly with the gas mask that he had been advised never to lose hanging round his neck. A salvage boat picked him up, unconscious, and he was taken to a hospital on the English coast. He recovered consciousness, but felt very ill from his immersion in the water. "Just like my cursed luck!" he groaned. "They stop me starting for a month, and when at last I do get off, it is in the only ship that has gone down for a year." "They are all alike," said the colonel, on his return from leave. "Here’s a blighter who grumbles at having his feet in water, and then takes advantage of my absence to go and have a salt-water bath!" Now, a few months before, King George, after his accident in France, had crossed the Channel on board the _Saxonia_. The fate of the ship naturally interested His Majesty, who came to see the survivors, and, as Tarkington was the only officer, he had the inestimable privilege of quite a long conversation with the King. The result of this was that a few days afterwards a regiment "somewhere in France" received a memorandum from general headquarters asking for a statement of the services of Tarkington, S. W. The memorandum being accompanied by certain verbal comments on the subject of "a very distinguished personage" by an officer in a red-banded gold-peaked cap, the colonel wrote nice things—which he had never said to him—of Tarkington, S. W., and the sergeant-major gave details of the brilliant conduct of the quartermaster at Loos. The _London Gazette_ a fortnight later recapitulated these exploits in a supplement to the list of awards and honours, and Tarkington, honorary captain, M.C., meditating on his fate, found the world not such a bad place after all. *CHAPTER XI* The first encounter that the brigade had with the village was not happy.