"Aye, aye, sir," I replied, and so left him, feeling younger than I had felt for many a long day.
I hadn't long to wait for the summons from the Flagship. Barely an hour had elapsed before the Chief Yeoman stood in the doorway of my cabin. I was going through the Defaulters' List with the Master-at-Arms, I remember.
"Signal from Flag, sir," said the Chief Yeoman. "Admiral wishes to see Commander Hornby at once." He had evidently shown it to the Officer of the Watch en route, because as he spoke I heard the pipe of the Boatswain's Mate shrill along the upper deck, calling away the picket boat. I've noticed that when the gods elect to disturb the course of human destinies they don't dally long upon the road.
I had a surprise on the threshold of the Great Man's after cabin. The Flag Lieutenant ushered me in and left me on the mat with a murmured "Commander Hornby, sir."
The Admiral was standing with his back to the empty stove. Sitting on the arm of a chintz upholstered sofa, swinging his leg and smoking a cigarette through a foot-long amber holder, was no less a person than the Director of Naval Offensives, whom I, in common with the rest of the Navy, imagined at that moment to be seated at his desk in a Whitehall office.
"Morning, Hornby," said the Admiral. "I've got your Captain's signal. Very glad to get it. Just cast your eye over that chart on the table."
From where I was standing I could see it was a big scale chart of the German coast. I crossed the cabin, and the Admiral, who was standing by the table, bent and placed his forefinger on a spot half way up the coast. "See that place, Hornby?"
"Yes," I said, "Angerbad. The new German destroyer and submarine base."
"That's it," said the man who spent his life watching it as a cat watches a mouse-hole. "We want you to block it...."
I confess that caught me in the wind a bit.