The Shiny was the Private Soldier's Paradise, the old hands would tell the young in the canteens at night. "Things are different there, my boy. In the Shiny a swoddy's a gentleman. Punkah-wallahs to pull the cords in the hot weather, a tiger curled at your feet to keep the snakes at bay, bearer to clean your boots, shooting parties, bubbly by the barrel, I don't know what all." Because of this jewel that was for ever dangled before his eyes, Ernie bore a good deal without complaining. A youth who had enlisted with him, and for much the same reason, induced his people to buy him out after six months. Ernie made no such attempt. "I'm going through with it now," he said. "Want to see a bit before I'm done and take em home a tale or two." After a spell of service in Ireland, at the close of the South African War, when Ernie was turned twenty, the expected call came. A draft was going out to join the First Battalion of the Hammer-men at Jubbulpore, and Ernie went with it. The cheering transport dropped down the Thames one misty November afternoon, passing hay-laden barges, timber ships from the Baltic, and rusty tramps from all over the world. The smell of the sea, so familiar and so good, thrilled Ernie's susceptible heart. It spoke to him of home, of the unforgotten things of childhood, of his passing youth, of much that was intimate and dear. He spent most of that first evening on deck, long after dark, in spite of the drizzle, watching the coast lights. Once they passed quite close to a light-ship, swinging desolately on the tide. "What's that?" he asked a sailor. "Sovereign Light," the man told him. Ernie leapt to the name familiar to him from childhood. How often had he not climbed the hill behind his home of winter evenings, and waited in the chalk-pit above the larch spinney for that far-off spark to leap out of the darkness and warm his expectant heart. He swung about and stared keenly through the gloom at a light winking at them from the land. "Then that's the light-house under Beau-nez!" he said, pointing. "That's it," the man answered. "And Beachbourne underneath. All them lights strung out like a necklace along the coast,--Bexhill, Hastings, Beachbourne. It's growing into a great place. D'you know it?" Ernie's heart and eyes were full. "My home's there," he said. "And my old dad." He stayed on deck peering through the darkness, till the last light had disappeared and they had swung round Beau-nez into the Channel and he could see the Seven Sisters, the gap that marks the mouth of the Ruther, and the cliffs between Newhaven and Rotting-dean. Then he went below and turned in. Thereafter, his home behind him, he began to taste the new life, the life of adventure.