But he got things fixed up for the following Thursday, and he left the place to settle with Donovan.
That gentleman's company of native labour was lodged a mile or so through the docks from Peter's camp, on the banks of the Tancarville Canal.

It was enlivened at frequent intervals, day and night, by the sirens of tugs bringing strings of barges to the docks, whence their cargo was borne overseas in the sea-going tramps, or, of course, taking equally long strings to the Seine for Rouen and Paris.

It was mud and cinders underfoot, and it was walled off with corrugated-iron sheeting and barbed wire from the attentions of some hundreds of Belgian refugees who lived along the canal and parallel roads in every conceivable kind of resting-place, from ancient bathing-vans to broken-down railway-trucks.
But there were trees along the canal and reeds and grass, so that there were worse places than Donovan's camp in Le Havre.
Peter found his friend surveying the endeavours of a gang of boys to construct a raised causeway from the officers' mess to the orderly-room, and he promptly broached his object.

Donovan was entranced with the proposal, but he could not go.

He was adamant upon it.