"Crumbs" was a spy actually in the heart of a vital fort, a spy who was possibly one of a score, or a hundred, busy upon the South Coast at that moment. John felt oppressed by a consciousness of dark agencies planning evil. Here was no romance. Here was real, hard, solid fact; War. Sims was an item in this warfare, one of a chain, of which Manwitz, Cherriton, Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, and the great unknown himself were all separate links.
For some minutes John paced the narrow confines of his room.
Who was R. from whom no news had arrived? A sensation that calamity and failure was possible bore in upon him. He had made a discovery truly, but would that discovery mean the frustration of the mysterious attack that was impending? He did not know, he hardly dared to hope.
"If Heatherpoint Fort were out of action," Colonel Hobin had said, "and if Scoles Head were similarly out of action, there might be the devil to pay."
John realised as he paced his little room with "Crumbs's" message in his hand, that an attack by sea was planned. Otherwise why the mention of the new mine chart? And if an attack by sea was intended on the great naval port of ... Scoles and Heatherpoint must be first put out of action. After that, the boom which ran across from Ponsonby Lighthouse to ... must be overcome.
He looked again at the message.
"This must be got to Dacent Smith at once," thought he; "and in the meantime 'Crumbs' must be watched."
He placed the message carefully in his pocket-book. Then, a new thought having struck him, he hurried out and sought Sergeant Ewins. The sergeant occupied one compartment of an old railway coach, which had been turned into huts for the men. Ewins was lying on his bunk when John entered, reading a Sunday paper by the light of a fort candle as thick as a man's wrist.
"I want to have a word with you, Ewins," said John, sitting on the edge of the chief gunner's bunk, which had formerly been a railway seat. "Can you tell me," he went on, "if it is possible for anyone to make a landing on the south shore, there? I mean in the bay below the look-out."
"It's possible, of course," Ewins answered, "but risky."