Back I travelled; this time with Renton in company, and Renton mad as
fire. It all turned out to be a bungle by some clerk that had taken
to drink and forgetfulness; but it cost us a month or two before the
Government of Senor Orrego, having no case, decided to do us justice
without troubling the Courts. Renton and I returned in triumph
through the grilling heats of July, and reached New York to find the
papers announcing this war for a certainty: whereupon, without
unpacking, I pelted for home.
From Southampton I made for London, and had two short interviews with
Farrell amid the rush of rejoining the H.A.C., collecting kit, and
the rest of it. Our talk was entirely about business, and was
conducted at the National Liberal Club--the hostelry to which I had
addressed all my letters and cables. I gathered that he used it
almost as a permanent residence, having sold or given up his house at
Wimbledon. He said nothing of Foe, and I forbore to ask questions.
From the H.A.C., in the general catch-as-catch-can of those early
weeks of the war, I found myself on one and the same day pushed into
a temporary Commission in the R.
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