The Director of Offensives chuckled and blew a cloud of smoke. "We'll help you, Hornby," he said. I think I flushed a bit. It was the cold insolence, the calculated madness of the thing that took away my breath.
"Aye, aye, sir," I said, and as I spoke I noted the red markings scattered about that section of the coast and clustering thick round the port of Angerbad till there was not an inch thus unadorned. Every mark was a German battery, and the guns ranged from 15 in. to 3-pounders or thereabouts.
"Just give him the outline of the thing," said the Admiral, and the Director of Offensives got down from his perch and joined us at the table. With the mouthpiece of his cigarette holder he traced the course of the canal to where it debouches into the harbour.
Our conversation for the ensuing half-hour need not be recorded here. It was concerned with ways and means and a good deal of detail that was subsequently found impracticable or to require modification. But it wasn't very long before I realised the magnitude of the task ahead of us, and while he talked the Director of Offensives sat twisted on the side of the table, enveloped in cigarette smoke, talking in curt sentences that gave one insight enough into the icy, almost terrible, intelligence that lay behind his smooth forehead. The other occupant of the cabin spoke but little, pacing slowly to and fro with bent head, pausing every now and again to caress the great wolfhound that lay sprawled across the hearth and never took his eyes off his master.
At length, however, when the broad outlines of the plan had been unfolded, the Admiral halted in his walk.
"We'll give you an obsolete Cruiser to fit out for the job, and you'll run her alongside, disembark the assaulting parties, and bring them off again when the work's finished. It's a seaman's job, and we've picked you to do it."
"Thank you, sir," I said, and meant it.
"What about the officers and men?" he said. "My pack want blooding again. Got any suggestions?"
"Yes, sir," I said. "I know of two I'd like to see there, and I'd like to take a Lieutenant called Thorogood as my First Lieutenant; I think I can answer for his willingness to come."
"Well, that can wait for the present," said the Director of Offensives. "We've got to get you South first of all and choose the ships. Then we'll find some men to put into 'em. We want a real Prince Rupert of a Marine to lead the storming party on the Mole, and some good subalterns——" He climbed stiffly off the table and threw away the stump of his cigarette. "Eh!" he said, "why ain't I twenty years younger! They didn't do these things when I was a boy!"