I was motoring homewards across the old line. A ghost-peopled dusk was crawling over the devastation and desolation that is Vimy, and in the distance the bare bones of St. Eloy loomed like a spectre skeleton against the frosty after-glow. We hummed past ThÉlus cross-roads, dipped downhill and, hey presto! all of a sudden I was in China. (No, not Neuville-St.-Vaast; China, China, place where they eat birds'-nests and puppy-dogs' tails.) There were coolies from some salvage company all over the place, perched on heaps of broken masonry, squatting along the ditch side, banked ten-deep in the road—tall villainous-looking devils, very intently watching something. I pulled up, partly to avoid killing them and partly to see what it was all about.

It was an open-air theatre. They had built it on the ruins of an estaminet, roofed it over with odds and ends of tin and tarpaulin, and the play was on. There was the orchestra against the back-cloth, rendering selections from popular Pekin revues on the drum, cymbal and one-stringed fiddle. There were the actors apparelled in the gorgeous costumes of old Cathay strutting mechanically through their parts, the female impersonators squeaking in shrill falsetto and putting in a lot of subtle fan-work. And there was the ubiquitous property-man drifting in and out among the performers, setting his fantastic house in order. We were actually within a mile of the Vimy Ridge, but we might have been away on the sunny side of Suez, deep within the mysterious heart of Canton City.

"Good as a three-ring circus, ain't it?" said an English voice at my side; "most of their plays run on for nine months or so, but this particular show only lasts six weeks, the merest curtain-raiser."

I turned towards the speaker and looked full upon the beak nose, cleft cheek and bristling red moustache of an old friend. "Good Lord, The Beachcomber!" I breathed. He started, peered at me and growled, "Captain Dawnay-Devenish, if it's all the same to you, Mister blooming Lieutenant."

In the year 1907 John Fanshawe Dawnay-Devenish arrived in a certain Far Eastern port, deck passenger aboard a Dutch tramp out of Batavia. The Volendam mate accompanied him to the gang-plank, shaking a size eleven fist: "Now yous, get, see?... an' iv yous gome bag...!" He ground his horse-teeth and made unpleasant noises in his throat.

"Shouldn't dream of risking it, old dear," replied John Fanshawe pleasantly, "not on your venerable coffee-grinder anyhow—not until she gets a navigator." He kissed his nicotined fingers to the exploding Hollander and strolled off down the wharf, whistling "Nun trink ich Schnapps."

Arrived in the European quarter he smoothed what creases he could out of his sole suit of drills, whitened his soggy topee and frayed canvas shoes with a piece of chalk purloined from a billiard saloon, bluffed a drink out of an inebriated ship's engineer and snatched a free lunch on the strength of it. Thus fortified he visited the British Consul, and by means of somewhat soiled letters proved that he really was a Dawnay-Devenish of the Dorset Dawnay-Devenishes (who should be in no way confused with the Devenish-Dawnays of Chipping-Banbury or the Devenishe d'Awnay-Dawnays of Upper Tooting; the Dorset branch alone possessing the privilege, granted by letters patent of ETHELRED the Unready, of drinking the King's bathwater every Maunday Tuesday of Leap Year).

Awed by the name—was there not a Dawnay-Devenish occupying a plump armchair in the Colonial Office at the time?—the Consul parted with five hundred dollars (Mex.). Next time the yield was not so satisfactory, not by two hundred and fifty dollars. At the end of a month, the Consul having proved a broken reed only good for five-dollar touches at considerable intervals, it behoved our hero to seek some fresh source of income. He cast up-river in search of it and disappeared from civilised ken for seven merciful years.

In June, 1914, he beat back into port in a fancifully decorated junk, minus one ear and two fingers, but plus a cargo of jingling genuine money. He hired the bridal suite in the leading hotel, got hold of a fleet of motor cars and a host of boon companions, lived on a diet of champagne cocktails and splashed himself about with the carefree abandon of a dancing dervish.

By the middle of July he was "on the beach" again and once more began to haunt the Consular office babbling of his influential relations and his "temporary embarrassment."

When war broke out he had thrown up the sponge altogether and "gone yellow"; was living from hand to mouth among the Chinese. At the end of August a ship touched at that Far Eastern port, picking up volunteers for the Western Front. The port contributed a goodly number, but there remained one berth vacant. The long-suffering Consul had a stroke of inspiration. Here was a means of at once swelling the man-power of his country and ridding himself of a pestilent ne'er-do-well. His boys, searching far and wide, discovered John Fanshawe in the back premises of a Malay go-down, oblivious to all things, and bore him inanimate aboard ship.

In this manner did our hero answer The Call.

In due course he appeared in our reserve squadron and was detailed to my troop. It did not take me many days to realise that I was up against the most practised malingerer in the British (or any other) army. Did a fatigue prove too irksome; did the jumps in the riding-school loom too large; did the serjeant speak a harsh word unto him, "The Beachcomber" promptly went sick. Malaria was his long suit. By aid of black arts learned during those seven years sojourning with the heathen Chinee he could switch malaria (or a plausible imitation of it) on or off at will and fool the M.O.'s every time. I used to interview them about it, but got scant sympathy. The Healers' Union brooks no interference from outsiders.

"Look here, that brute's bluffing you," I would protest.

To which they would make reply, "Can you give us any scientific explanation of how a man can fake his pulse and increase his temperature to 102° by taking thought? You can't? No, we didn't suppose you could. Good day."

One person, however, I did succeed in convincing, and that was the C.O., who knew his East. "Very good," said he. "If the skunk won't be trained he shall go untrained. He sails for France with the next draft."

Nevertheless our friend did not sail with the next draft. Ten minutes after being warned for it, the old complaint caught him again, and when the band played our lads out of barracks he was snugly tucked away in sick-bay with sweet girl V.A.D.'s coaxing him to nibble a little calves-foot jelly and keep his strength up. Nor did he figure among either of the two subsequent drafts; his malaria wouldn't hear of it.

I went back to the land of fireworks at the head of one of these drafts myself, freely admitting that John Fanshawe had the best of the joke. He waved me farewell out of the hospital window by way of emphasising this.

The Babe followed me out shortly after, bringing about fifty men with him. He strolled into Mess one evening and mentioned quite casually that The Beachcomber was in camp.

"How did you manage it?" we chorused in wonder.

"Heard the story of his leaving China and repeated the dose," the Babe replied. "Just before the draft was warned, my batman led him down to Mooney's shebeen and treated him to the run of his throat—at my expense. He came all the way as baggage."

Thus did John Fanshawe complete the second stage of his journey to the War. He did not remain with us long, however; a fortnight at the most.

We were doing some digging at the time, night-work, up forward, in clay so glutinous it would not leave the shovels and had mainly to be clawed out by hand—filthy, back-breaking, heart-rending labour. On calling the roll one dawn I found that The Beachcomber was missing.

"Anybody seen anything of him?" I asked.

"Yessir, I did," a man replied, and spat disgustedly.

"Well," I inquired, "was he hit or anything?"

The man grunted, "No, Sir; I don't think 'e was 'it; I think 'e was fed up. 'Call this war, do they?' says 'e to me. 'I call it blawsted WORK!' I told 'im to get on wiv it an' do 'is whack.

"'E chucks a couple of spoonfuls of muck and then sits down. 'I can feel me damned ol' malaria creepin' over me again, Jim,' says 'e. 'Noticed a Red Cross outfit in the valley; think I'll be totterin' along there,' says 'e. 'So long.' And that was the last the regiment saw of its Beachcomber."

"Have it as you like, Captain Dawnay-Devenish," I said, "but before I go tell me, how did you wangle this job?"

"Any affair of yours?" he sneered.

"No," I admitted; "still I'm interested."

He laughed unpleasantly. "Yes, you would be. Always infernally keen on minding my business for me, weren't you? Well, if you must know, I was convalescing when these same Chows started a pogrom in the next camp. I stopped it, and the powers—who were scared stiff—tacked a stripe on me and told me to carry on."

"That accounts for the stripe," said I; "but what of the stars?"

"Oh, them! We were behind the line down south last year laying a toy railway when the Hun broke clean through in a fog. Remember? I pulled the Chinks together and we stopped 'em. That's all."

"Good Lord, that wasn't you, was it?" I cried. "Set about 'em with picks and shovels, shrieking Chinese war-cries and chopped 'em to bits. Oh, splendid! But how on earth did you rouse these tame coolies to it?"

The Beachcomber tugged his red moustache and laughed deprecatingly. "It wasn't very difficult really. You see, these birds of mine are only temporary coolies. In civilian life they're mostly river pirates, Tong-fighters and suchlike professional cut-throats. Killing comes natural to 'em. They only wanted somebody who could organize and lead 'em."

"And you could?"

The Beachcomber drew himself up proudly.

"I should hope so. Wasn't I their Pirate King for seven long years?"

PATLANDER.

Self-Determination in Devon.

"At a public meeting at Barnstaple, the Vicar presiding, it was decided to form a local branch of the League of Nations."—Western Morning News.

Won't WILSON be bucked?