"'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.' "'Does the end justify the means?' "As you may well imagine, strange theses were developed, and I am afraid that many a sore head resulted from the preliminary discussions. It didn't take much to start them going in that last fortnight after the snails failed us; but the diversion was good for them, and, besides, poor chaps, they were far too weak to be able to hurt one another in the least. Their fights were like the tussles of a couple of puppies. When you see some of the boys on the steamer to-night, by the way, I can suggest no more promising line of inquiry for you to pursue than to ask them to tell you some of the things they used to fight about in the desert." Wireless Operator Birkby and Stewards Barton and Fenton, who were among the _Tara_ survivors, had, on their return to England, been put to work on the _Tara's_ sister-ship, the _Greenore_, and it was behind the darkened windows of the smoking-room of this smart little packet, as she bore into the snoring sou'wester which swept St. George's Channel, that I contrived to gather the three of them together to talk of their adventures. "All I want to know," I said, "is a few of the things you fellows used to punch each other's heads about in the desert. I've got all the rest of the story." They rose to that cast with a rush. All three commenced talking at once, but the two stewards quickly fell silent out of deference to the superior rank of the wireless operator. VI--THE WIRELESS OPERATOR'S TALE "Easier to tell you, sir, what we _didn't_ fight about," laughed Birkby. "At first it was mostly food. We didn't have any 'pothecary's scales to divide it exactly with, and when one lad got a few grains of rice more than another, it wasn't in human nature not to make some bit of a mention of it." "That was wot you an' me 'ad our first tiff over, matey," cut in Fenton. "It was the day after Captain Tanner gave out the text 'love thy neighbour like thyself' for us to ponder ower. You dipped into the pot ahead of me, an' I said, 'How's a bloke goin' to love his neighbour when that neighbour pinches half his rice?' You filled your mouth with one hand an' clipped me one in the jaw wi' t'other; an' as I went reelin' back I put my foot into Bill's pile of toasted snails, squashing 'em flat. So over he rolls an' starts to beat me afore I cud get up. W'en at last I gets up the rice was all gone an' Bill had copped all my snails to pay for the ones I squashed. All I had to put down me gullet that night was some of the squashed snails I salvaged from the sand, an' the grit I ate with 'em started my dysentery going again fer a week."