The speaker introduced himself as Jack Kennedy, quartermaster-sergeant by rank, and sheep-farmer in civilian life. His left hand was in a sling, a strip of surgical plaster embellished his cheek. During his stay at Cape Town he had been forced into a squabble with a crowd of disloyal Cape Dutch. Words led to blows, with the result that three of his opponents were picked up insensible, while Kennedy was taken to the military hospital with a broken wrist and a nasty contusion of the forehead, caused by the nail-shod boot of an eighteen-stone antagonist.