His hair was much greyer and very thin about the temples, and there were lines of overwork below the eyes.

But the eyes were the same as before, keen and kindly and shrewd, and there was no change in the firm set of the jaw.
'We must on no account be disturbed for the next hour,' he told his secretary.

When the young man had gone he went across to both doors and turned the keys in them.
'Well, Major Hannay,' he said, flinging himself into a chair beside the fire.

'How do you like soldiering ?' 'Right enough,' I said, 'though this isn't just the kind of war I would have picked myself.

It's a comfortless, bloody business.