At Swords' Point by Andre Norton

present companions, Quinn suddenly wondered? The Indies werelost. Thousands upon thousands of men who had lived overseas all their lives — and their families before them for generations — had been thrown back upon a crowded mother country where there were not enough jobs, enough space to go around. Baumgarde was lucky indeed if he had been able to get an appointment in the West Indies which would take him out of the almost hopeless future facing his contemporaries at home.
    â€œWe were born, you see,” Dirk had turned to Quinn, “a hundred years too late. I was educated to serve in Java. Joris had promise of a post in the Outer Islands — did you not?”
    The writer shrugged. “A promise, yes. Far away and long ago was that promise made. I was yet in school then. Came the war and — poof!” He snapped his fingers. “I can tell you,” he turned his head to the rest, “we should have set up as pirates. Take a German patrol boat and —”
    Kemp gave an exaggerated sigh as if they were now about to hear some argument long worn threadbare. “In De Biesbosch no doubt?”
    Dirk added to the needling. “This is how we won the war, my sons!”
    For a second Joris’ lips quirked as if he tasted something bitter. Then they loosened, and he laughed ruefully. “So the old soldier becomes a bore with his reminiscences —”
    â€œPlease,” for the first time Quinn broke in, “take pity on the ignorance of an outlander — what is De Biesbosch?”
    â€œAh,” Dirk grinned. “He is all yours, comrade Joris. Enlighten his darkness on that subject — but not in stale detail, I beg of you!”
    Joris jerked an ink-stained thumb south over the wilderness of mud, reeds, and wild green ground. “There lies De Biesbosch. And it has engulfed in its time bettermen than this boatload of juvenile minds. It is marsh threaded by a maze of streams. Once it had importance to us — the roads — water roads — which ran through it carried underground contacts on their way to rendezvous with the allies, spies in and out of the country, escaping airmen on their way Horne, transports of medicine and supplies. We had a fleet of small canoes to make those trips, and we went by night. Then there were the ‘akes’ — houseboats where underground workers lived when necessary —”
    â€œAnd where were also kept German prisoners,” interpolated Kemp, intent upon his camera again. “Werkendam was the center of one of the main ‘crossings’. An interesting period in history — but now past.”
    â€œYes, as dead as the Dodo or the East Indies Company,” added Baumgarde sleepily.
    But was it ‘dead'? Quinn thought he would question that.
    â€œHowever we may be taking to it again.” Dirk's tone, light as it was, picked up that thought of his. “Come the Others.”
    Joris capped his pen. “The next generation may well turn into underground cave dwellers, unless we end by blowing ourselves up,” he commented almost cheerfully. “It is a great world — ninety-nine and nine-tenths mud —”
    â€œBut still we struggle to gain that last tenth —”
    â€œOptimist and dreamer.” Joris scoffed at his host and began to read what he had written.
    The water road to s'Hertogenbosch was not a deserted one. Waves set up by motor freighters bound for the Rhine — their short fat funnels and high living quarters giving them an odd outline — rocked the Polite Policeman. And the yacht glided out of the path of the tugboats pulling almost endless rows of river boats.
    Just before they reached Gorinchem they were signaledby one of these. A man wearing the peaked cap of the captain waved a hand vigorously at the yacht, and Joris leaped to his feet to return the salute. Quinn had an excellent sight of the captain's face. That devil-may-care cock of the