Your plan is, like yourself, marvellous! Nobody but you could have thought of it. I could turn the Mountains of the Moon into the base you require in forty-eight hours, but for one overriding difficulty, which your memorandum does not meet. There is no AIR on the Moon, my Winsom, and human beings being what they are, air is necessary IF THEY ARE NOT TO PERISH.
Only THREE things are necessary to win the war: air, SPEED, and GUTS. I have got the last, you are providing the second, but where are we to get the AIR?
Skegness?
We had better try the Valley of the Dry Bones instead, if the archæologists can find it for us. Failing that, Sinbad’s cavern.
Yours till Ginger pops,
Krusher.
This was the kind of thoughtless criticism to which I was occasionally subjected by the old air-dog.[1] Magnificent in his courage, more often right than wrong, a splendid example of British brain-power, there were times when he made the error of estimating other people’s mental capacity by his own. Time was pressing, so I wirelessed the following reply:—
First Lord to First Air Lord:
Take Supply of Oxygen in Canisters,
which settled the matter. Alas! I was to discover later that this too speedy resolution of his difficulties was merely to succeed in antagonising the bluff old warrior against the whole project.