“No,” said Mortimer.
“Well, in that, he showed how every great advance, such as gunpowder and steam, met with opposition, and chiefly from the men at the top, who, being the older men, had quite naturally lost the mental flexibility of youth. It may be just another case of that. Admiral Bishop is a conservative old buck. But then I suspect this project has never come to his attention. I think it’s been stopped lower down, and I fear there may be jealousy or politics or something else worse than conservatism involved in this.”
“Give me the names of the men who have developed the scheme,” said Mortimer, “and I’ll dig it out. I’ll make old Bishop find out about it and bring it up before the General Staff. I needn’t tell him how I heard of it; so nobody will get in trouble.”
Mortimer lost no time in bringing this matter before Admiral Bishop. The old man was averse to bothering his head with any new, wild-cat schemes, but, yielding reluctantly before Mortimer’s insistence, did secure from the authors of this one an outline of it for consideration by the General Staff. At the meeting of this body a number of objections were raised by the more conservative officers. The expense would be out of all proportion to the prospect of success; nets could never be paid out fast enough to surround the elusive sub; the thing had never been done—was unheard of; these new-fangled schemes never did work, anyway. With his lawyer’s skill, Mortimer questioned them as to all the difficulties in the way of the project, till he felt that some of the more progressive members were in favor of it, and the others weakening. Then, following this advantage, he showed them how lacking in the convincing quality all the objections had been, and virtually demanded and finally obtained their acquiescence in putting the plan into operation, overriding the final objections of Admiral Bishop in a way that caused this officer to be visibly incensed.
Engineering talent was set to work on the details of the scheme, perfecting the net studded with tiny bombs, and the machinery for paying it out at high speed from the moving ship. This latter being a purely mechanical problem, there was no lack of inventive skill available for bringing it to the production stage in record time. Provision was made for the safe recovering of the nets without detonating the bombs. Five fast liners, built and building, were taken over and rearranged for installation of additional boilers and the new gear. Three new ships were started building, specially designed for this service. Thus it was estimated that, during the autumn, eight ships capable of thirty knots would be ready to give this project a trial.
Mortimer requested Admiral Bishop to institute an investigation to find out why this important suggestion had been side-tracked. This quest proved most confusing; the original copy of the communication could not be found. Several engineer officers recalled having seen it, and one said he thought he had turned it over to Commander Rich to get his opinion. Commander Rich, on the other hand, said he was sure he had never seen it. In the end it was concluded that the paper had been pigeon-holed and then lost through the carelessness of some yeoman.
Mortimer told Evans the result of this investigation. Evans listened attentively, frowning as the unsatisfactory conclusion was reached. For some time he sat in silence; then he spoke:
“Sam, it’s a beastly uncomfortable thing to come to you with a criticism of my superior officer, but I don’t see how I can conscientiously dodge it. For some time I’ve been getting uneasy about Commander Rich, and this thing makes me more so.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mortimer.
“I doubt his loyalty.”