"You really think that they mean to have a go at us ?" "I think there'll be a war soon," Norgate confessed.

"It probably won't commence at sea, but you'll have to do your little lot, without a doubt." Baring gazed across the room.

There was a hard light in his eyes.
"Sounds beastly, I suppose," he muttered, "but I wish to God it would come! A war would give us all a shaking up--put us in our right places.
We all seem to go on drifting any way now.

The Services are all right when there's a bit of a scrap going sometimes, but there's a nasty sort of feeling of dry rot about them, when year after year all your preparations end in the smoke of a sham fight.

Now I am on this beastly land job--but there, I mustn't bother you with my grumblings." "I am interested," Norgate assured him.