These messages, written on official forms, lay on the table in the private room of the Commander-in-Chief's office at Auldhaig.
There were three persons in the room. One, the Commander-in-Chief, a breezy, dark-featured, clean-shaven naval officer of about fifty-five; the second, the dapper, boyish-faced lieutenant-colonel who held the post of Officer Commanding the R.A.F. Air Station. The third was the Commander-in-Chief's secretary—a silent, almost taciturn individual whose face was almost the same colour as that of his gilt aiguillettes. In his head the secretary held knowledge upon which depended the success of the Grand Fleet and for which Germany would willingly have paid millions; but that firmly set mouth was sealed upon all matters appertaining to the war save when lawful occasion demanded. And in a few months' time John Elphinhaye would be placed upon the Retired List with a pension that, with Income Tax deducted, would be little more than the wages of an artisan.
"The whole business seems a general muck-up, Greyhouse," observed the Commander-in-Chief, addressing the lieutenant-colonel. "There's something wrong somewhere. How can this confounded lighter be sunk in collision and shortly afterwards be blown up?"
"There were two lighters, sir," replied Colonel Greyhouse. "It is quite possible that one was mistaken for the other."
"As a matter of fact there were half a dozen," explained the Commander-in-Chief. "And all, except No. 5, are accounted for. That is so, Elphinhaye?"
"Yes, sir," corroborated the secretary.
"But the main reason why I came to see you, sir," said Lieutenant-Colonel Greyhouse, "was the affair of my missing officers. In the first instance they went off in a boat belonging to one of my lieutenants. I cannot conceive how they came to be on board the lighter. True, she was to be transferred to the R.A.F., but she left here under an R.N.V.R officer and crew."
"Sub-lieutenant John McIntosh, sir, who reported from Donnikirk," announced the secretary, in response to his superior's inquiry —mutely expressed by the raising of his bushy eyebrows.
"Exactly," agreed the Commander-in-Chief. "The situation required further information, and I have wired instructions to Mr. McIntosh to report immediately upon his return to-day."
"Then there is the question raised by the presence of Captain Fennelburt——"