Quickly he scanned the news columns. Nothing escaped him, but there was no mention of the attempted outrage on the troop train. For good reasons, mainly to avoid creating any alarm on the part of the public and partly to conceal the fact from the German authorities that their master-spy had paid the penalty for his activities, the news had been completely suppressed by the Censor, although already eight-hundred soldiers were spreading the report amongst their comrades on Salisbury Plain.
Terence gave vent to a chuckle of satisfaction. Nevertheless, he kept an anxious eye on the boats putting off to the ship, in case one of them contained a messenger bearing a demand for the lieutenant to report himself to the civil authorities. Nor did his uneasiness subside until the "Strongbow" weighed and proceeded towards her station.
For weeks she cruised, save for the short visits she was compelled to pay when requiring coal and provisions. Yet nothing occurred to mar the uneventfulness of that lone patrol.
The principal topic on board was now the question of the Dardanelles operations, of which reports were received by wireless.
Amongst the officers there were two distinct parties in the matter of opinion. One, headed by Commander Ramshaw, expressed the belief in the success of the attempt to force the supposedly impregnable waterway. The other, though smaller, was represented by Lieutenant Lymore, who pessimistically regarded the operations as hopeless.
"It's not the Turkish guns," he declared. "It's that rotten current setting down from the Marmora. I've been there, and I know what it's like. The Turks will be chucking cartloads of mines overboard, and there'll be no end of a mess up."
The very next morning came the news of the totally unexpected appearance of the Super-Dreadnought "Queen Elizabeth." Ramshaw was so elated that he upset a cup of coffee over the ward-room tablecloth, and cheerfully paid up the sixpence demanded by McQuid, the assistant paymaster, who in his capacity of member of the Mess Committee was as sharp as needles in mulcting a delinquent.
"That's the way," declared the commander. "Taking those forts in the rear. They'll be through within a week."
A week passed, and still no news of the successful forcing of the Dardanelles. Then came the disquieting tidings of the sinking of the "Ocean," "Irresistible," and "Bouvet" and the disablement of the "Gaulois."
"Just what I said!" declared Lymore. "It's those beastly mines. Now, if I had a prominent voice——"