that mean that our squadron is coming in?"

"Of course it does, silly! Get your hat quick, and we'll climb up to
the top of the hill and see if we can get a glimpse of them coming in.
You'll have plenty of time to get down again and powder your nose
before your Bunje-man, or whatever you call him, can get ashore.
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"

Together they toiled up the hill to the high stretch of moorland from
which a view of the entrance to the Firth could be obtained.

"This is where I always come," said Eileen Cavendish. She stopped and
panted for breath. "Ouf! I'm getting fat and short-winded. How long
is it since you've seen your husband?"

Betty considered. "Three months and seventeen days," was the reply.

Her companion nodded.

"It's rotten, isn't it? But now--at times like this, I almost feel as
if it's--worth it, I was going to say; but I suppose it's hardly that.
I always vowed I'd never marry a sailor, and ever since I did I've felt
sorry for all the women with other kinds of husbands.... Bill is such
a dear!"

They found seats in the lee of a stack of peat and sat down side by
side to watch the distant entrance. A faint grey haze beyond the
headlands on either side of the mouth of the harbour held the outer sea
in mystery.

"There's nothing in sight," said Betty.

"No," said the other, "but there will be, presently. You wait." She
put her elbows on her knees and rested her face in the cup of her two
hands. "You haven't got used to waiting yet," she continued. "It
seems to have made up half my life since I met Bill. I had a little
daughter once, and it didn't matter so much then.... But she died, the
mite..."

No Battleships had emerged from the blue-grey curtain of the mist when
lunch-time came; nothing moved across the surface of the empty harbour,
and they descended the hill to share the meal in Betty's room.

"Perhaps they won't be in till after tea," suggested Betty. "Perhaps
the fog has delayed them."

"Perhaps," said the other.

So they put tea in a Thermos flask, and bread-and-butter and a slice of
cake apiece in a little basket, and climbed again to their vantage
point in the lee of the peat stack. They read novels and talked in
desultory snatches through the afternoon. Then they had tea and told
each other about the books they were reading. But as their shadows
lengthened across the blaeberry and heather, the silences grew longer,
and Betty, striving to concentrate h