“We’ve a few ideas left still which the Germans haven’t mopped up,” he declared.
“Personally,” the Admiral observed, joining in the conversation, “I consider the submarine danger the greatest to which this country has yet been exposed. No one but a nation of pirates, of ferocious and conscienceless huns, could have inaugurated such a campaign.”
“Good for you, dad!” his son exclaimed. “They’re a rotten lot of beggars, of course, although some of them have behaved rather decently. There’s one thing,” he added, sipping his port, “there isn’t a job in the world I’d sooner take on than submarine hunting.”
“Every one to his taste,” Granet remarked good-humouredly. “Give me my own company at my back, my artillery well posted, my reserves in position, the enemy not too strongly entrenched, and our dear old Colonel’s voice shouting ‘At them, boys!’ That’s my idea of a scrap.”
There was a little murmur of sympathy. Ralph Conyers, however, his cigar in the corner of his mouth, smiled imperturbably.
“Sounds all right,” he admitted, “but for sheer excitement give me a misty morning, the bows of a forty-knot destroyer cutting the sea into diamonds, decks cleared for action, and old Dick in oilskins on the salute—‘Enemy’s submarine, sir, on the port bow, sir.’”
“And what would you do then?” Granet asked.
“See page seven Admiralty instructions this afternoon,” the other replied, smiling. “We’re not taking it sitting down, I can tell you.”
The Admiral rose and pushed back his chair.
“I think,” he said, “if you are quite sure, all of you, that you will take no more port, we should join the ladies.”