There were a great many things he wanted to know. His method was quite different from that of the Scotland Yard detective who had cross-examined the two witnesses earlier in the evening. Whereas Etheridge asked an infinity of questions, the Commander simply requested Jimmy, and then Captain Crouch, to tell him all they knew. When he had heard both stories, had seen a copy of the cypher message, and turned up von Essling's name in a Prussian Court directory, he got to his feet and walked quickly out of the room. He returned in about an hour, saying that he had talked the matter out with an exceedingly high official (whom it would not be possible to mention). He asked a few more questions concerning Rosencrantz, and Rudolf Stork, and then turned to Crouch.
"You must understand," said he, "that in a matter like this absolute secrecy is necessary. From the moment you leave this building, you are not to breathe a single word of what you know to any one. For all that, we are exceedingly grateful for the information you and your young friend have brought."
"The Grand Fleet, sir, will be warned?" asked Crouch.
The Commander bowed his head.
"That has been done already," said he. "Five minutes after I left you--that is to say an hour ago--Sir John Jellicoe was made acquainted with the possibilities of the raid. Torpedo-boat-destroyers were warned to keep a sharp look-out for German submarines in the vicinity of the Well-bank light-ship. You say that this man Stork means to put to sea in a smack called the 'Marigold'?"
"That's so," said Crouch. "And if you have no objection, I should like to make a suggestion?"
"By all means," said the other.
"I may not look it," Crouch went on, "but I'm a sea-faring man by trade, though I have spent half my life knocking about on land. At one time--when I was little more than a boy--I went to sea on a trawler. I know the North Sea as well as any smacksman, and it so happens that the part I know best is this same Well-bank, where the U93 is supposed to be. And now, sir, here's the point; I've an old score to pay with Rudolf Stork; he's fooled me twice already, and if ever he does it again, this foot of mine's not cork. I know every fathom of the Dogger Bank, and I ask nothing better than leave to go to sea, and run down the 'Marigold.'"
"Good!" exclaimed the Commander, slapping Crouch on the back, "you shall have your wish and a 'permit' to see you through. It's hardly likely that we should stand in your way when you want to do no more than help us."
Though the one was an officer in the Royal Navy and the other no more than an honest merchant captain, there is--as we have said before--a kind of bond that binds all men together who learn to read the face of Nature in the changing aspects of the sea. As the oceans are wide and the seas many, so do all sailors who leave port under the red or the white ensign belong to a great brotherhood that lives one life, whether it be in ward-room, in gun-room, or in stokehold, that runs the same risks and faces the same cold and tragic death, for the honour and good name of that same old England that centuries ago ousted the Don from the Spanish Main and carried the British flag from Pole to Pole. There was this in common--though they never thought it--between Captain Crouch and Commander Fells, R.N.