In the novel Lawrence describes the trip back from Narrabeen:

They put down the Trewhellas at their house in North Sydney, and went on to Murdoch Road over the ferry. Jack had still to take the car down to the garage in town.

(In 1922 there was no Sydney Harbour Bridge, so cars had to cross the Harbour by vehicular ferry.)

Is it possible that this car was one of the two Friend Austins, garaged at Taylor's Garage in the city? Is it possible that one of the Friend family - perhaps one of the younger members - had "borrowed" the car for the weekend, and had to return it to the garage before Monday?

Then there was that train trip down to Thirroul the next day, Monday.

The text says that Jack Callcott and his wife Victoria accompanied the Somerses down to "Mullumbimby" (Thirroul). We now know that this Victoria was almost certainly a Friend - "Dawdie" [Dorothy] Friend, in fact (who, as far as we know, had no close connection with Jack Scott, who was unlikely to have been the Lawrences' fellow passenger to Thirroul that Monday).

It is much more likely that whoever had been driving that Friend car the previous day - when Lawrence had learned that "Wyewurk" was vacant - was also the male who went with them in the train down to Thirroul.

From my examination of the Friend family-tree, two possible candidates stood out - Walter Friend (the man I interviewed at Collaroy in 1980) and his younger brother, Robert Moreton Friend - the man Walter Friend had suggested I write to.

As the research progressed further, it seemed increasingly likely that "Bob Friend" was the more likely candidate for being "the other half" of the Jack Callcott amalgam. (See confirmation of this below in the "Kings memoir".)

In 1922, Robert Moreton Friend was 22. He had volunteered in 1918 to go to war, but missed out when the Armistice was declared. As a former GPS boy - see the "Kings memoir" below - he was prime material for membership of Jack Scott's secret army.

It was not for nothing that Walter Friend thought his younger brother Robert would be interested in what I was doing.