Jervis had shorn his beard, and in the process seemed to have parted with something of his effervescent vivacity, and when I remembered him as I had last seen him, as we shoved off from the blazing Mole, stumbling amid the dead and bawling through his megaphone.... No, we weren't feeling gay.
It was after dinner that we got really talking. There must have been a dozen of us altogether, because Shorty had gone home to his wife, and Selby had gone Home too: a longer journey, but perhaps an even happier meeting at the end of it.... Anyhow, there were about a dozen of us that lit cigars and cigarettes and put our elbows on the table, and the scene, as I remember it, was just like some big family happily reunited, with the shadow of the Angel's wing still hovering over all.
Messengers were coming and going all the while with signals and telegrams, and presently the orderly murmured, "The Director of Offensives, sir, wants to talk to you on the telephone."
I went up to the room I used as an office when ashore, and as I picked up the receiver of the Admiralty line, heard the Director's voice faintly, speaking not to me but to someone in his room.
"Tell them I'll be at the War Office at 3 P.M. for that meeting ... that's all for to-night, Miss Mayne," I heard him say. Then clearer and louder, "Hallo, that you, Hornby?"
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Well, I'm damned glad to hear it." Then he said a lot of nice things about what we'd done and being proud of us, and finished off: "Well, I'd like to see you at 3.30 P.M. to-morrow if you can get to town by then."
"Aye, aye, sir," and as I answered a thought flashed through my brain: it was one of those brilliant inspirations that come once in a lifetime, and in the course of a sleepless night (none of us slept that night) I perfected it into a piece of strategy for which I claim, in all modesty, a place in this already unduly prolonged narrative.
Mouldy occupied a spare room at my diggings where most of us were billeted for the night, and when I turned out the following morning, I visited him. I found him drinking tea and reading the morning, paper.
"How d'you feel?" I asked.