Cirrus@Austlit

Author's note: This is a story, but the characters are real, and the incidents not imaginary. At the present moment, the comrades round whose adventures the tale is woven, are scattered throughout our Empire's far-flung outposts. For them, crowded cities can never be abiding-places, nor the conventionalities of civilization anything but irksome....'He has not really come down to book-writing. That art requires a certain amount of trained literary skill which he does not claim to possess. He knows he cannot write a story as some of you could tell it; but those for whom this book is written will not judge his work harshly; and for others, as you know, he does not care.'

Dedication: To Admiral Moresby By One Who Has Followed In His Footsteps