Nevertheless, Brian Strong was puzzled. Although as a patriot he was elated at the news of the aerial combat, it puzzled him to think that the Rioguayans had failed to take advantage of the wonderful machines that owed their existence to his brains.
"It's the human element that counts, all the time, Peter," he remarked. "If the Rioguayan air fleet doesn't put up a better show in the future, I needn't have gone to the trouble of bringing this gadget home."
He tapped his breast coat pocket, wherein lay one of the essentials of his invention. The others he had also succeeded in bringing to England in spite of difficulties—the latest being a wordy encounter with a self-important Customs official at Southampton Docks.
Had the Admiralty permitted a full, uncensored account of the engagement to become public, Brian Strong would not have been quite so cheerful. No mention had been made of the disconcerting fact that the British seaplanes were unaccountably unable to attack the fugitive Cerro Algarrobo. Perhaps the circumstances were deemed too insignificant to merit notice at Whitehall, but that was not the view taken by the flying-officers of the seaplanes in question.
Hurrying by taxi to Southampton West Station, Brian and Peter were just in time to catch a Waterloo express. They dined on board the train, took another taxi at Waterloo, and gave the driver instructions to drive to the Admiralty.
They found the buildings besieged by a crowd of applicants of all sorts and conditions. There were young ex-Royal Naval and R.N.R. officers offering themselves for active service afloat. Retired officers, who had been on the Pension List for years were clamouring for jobs afloat, a few "after soft billets ashore". There were highly patriotic individuals of the profiteer type ready to prove their indispensability and secretly hoping that the petty little war would develop into something big and last for years and years. Inventors with ideas that were good, and inventors whose suggestions were of not the slightest use, were in evidence to leaven the lump that threatened to clog the Admiralty machine.
At length, after an hour and a half of tedious waiting, Brian and Peter found themselves within the vestibule of the Admiralty. Without a word, a harassed petty-officer attendant handed Brian Strong a slip of paper to be filled in.
"Name?"—that was easy enough. "Address?" Brian hadn't one. He was a wanderer on the face of the earth. He wrote the name of an hotel in the Strand where he hoped to put up, but up to the present he had made no attempt to book a room. "Officer required to be seen?" Here was another poser. At Peter's suggestion, he wrote, "Deputy Chief of Naval Staff". The last question, "Nature of Business?" was the pitfall. If he stated too much and claimed too great an importance of his errand, he would more than likely be "turned down" as an importunate time-waster. If he merely requested a private interview without credentials to support his application, he would not stand the ghost of a chance of stating his case.
He turned appealingly to his nephew. The petty-officer sighed impatiently. He was not a man to "suffer fools gladly". That sort of thing becomes boring after years in the Admiralty inquiry bureau.
"Put down 'Applicant late Consulting Engineer to the Rioguayan Air Board '," suggested Peter. "That will do the trick."