I heard the words, but my mind was far away in the corner of a southern dockyard at night, and as in a dream I heard Milsom's voice:
"Stonework and searchlights.... I wish I knew.... I wish I knew."
Ye Gods! Was this what the bogie in him was driving at?
"I'll wire to the Admiralty for your relief at once," said the Admiral, as I withdrew to return to my ship. "He'll be North in three days, and you can start in on this business."
And so I went out, past the motionless figure of the Marine sentry in the lobby, to begin an awfully big adventure.
6
I was sitting in my cabin after dinner writing up my night order book when Jakes pushed back the curtain and stepped inside. I believe in being accessible, and don't let people knock at my door.
"Hullo, Mouldy," I said, "what can I do for you?"
He was our Assistant Gunnery Lieutenant, and he was called Mouldy in the Wardroom on account of a silent sardonic manner he usually affected. Popularity is a mysterious thing; no man ever sought harder to avoid it or achieved it more readily than our silent "fathom of misery," as the First Lieutenant affectionately termed him. I think fellows in a Mess read character rather well and ignore externals. Anyhow, for all his dry cynicism, I knew Mouldy to have an absurdly tender heart, and to be as sensitive of soul as a soft-shelled egg. He stood with his cap under his arm and his hands joined in front of him, the fingers twisting.
"'Speak to you for a minute, sir?" he mumbled. As a matter of fact, before he introduced the formula that signifies private affairs, I guessed at the first glance that Mouldy was in trouble of some sort. I nodded at the armchair.