For to Tony Jack was as king, to whom he gave passionate loyalty without stint or measure.

And thus for his son Jack's sake, Jack's father took Tony on again, resolved to make another effort to make something out of him.
The bond between the two boys was hard to analyse.

In games at Public and High School Jack was always Captain and Tony his right-hand man, held to his place and his training partly by his admiring devotion to his Captain but more by a wholesome dread of the inexorable disciplinary measures which slackness or trifling with the rules of the game would inevitably bring him.

Jack Maitland was the one being in Tony's world who could put lasting fear into his soul or steadiness into his practice.

But even Jack at times failed.
Then when both were eighteen they went to the War, Jack as an Officer, Tony as a Non-Commissioned Officer in the same Battalion, Jack hating the bloody business but resolute to play this great game of duty as he played all games for all that was in him, Tony aglow at first with the movement and glitter and later mad with the lust for deadly daring that was native to his Keltic Gallic soul.