“But while we are watching the Empire is, surely, in gravest peril?” Trustram protested.
“We have an Intelligence Department which is said to be dealing with news leaking from our shores.”
“Intelligence Department?” laughed Jack Sainsbury. “Read the German papers, and you’ll see that the public in Germany are daily told the actual truth concerning us, while we are deliberately kept in ignorance by the superior cult of khaki.” Then he added, “The whole of this system of secrecy, and of playing upon the public mind, must be broken down, otherwise very soon, I fear, the British will believe nothing that is told them. We won’t be spoon-fed on tit-bits any more. We are not the pet-dogs of a Hide-the-Truth administration.”
“That’s a bit stiff,” declared Trustram with a frown, as befitted an official wearing His Majesty’s uniform.
“I don’t care! I speak exactly what I feel. The British Empire is to-day greatly menaced, and if we are to win, we must face the facts and speak out boldly. We don’t want these incompetent khaki-clad amateur detectives telling the matter-of-fact British nation official untruths. Why, only the other day the Parliamentary mouthpiece of the War Office told us that every German secret agent was known and under constant surveillance! Is that the truth, I ask you, or is it a deliberate official falsehood? Read Hansard’s reports. I have quoted from them!”
The two men could not raise a protest. They knew, alas! that the words the young man had spoken were the actual and ghastly truth.
“Well,” he went on, looking at his visitors, “we know what is in progress—or at least we have the strongest suspicion of it. Now, what decision have you both arrived at? What, in the interests of the safety of the Empire, shall we do?”
Trustram shrugged his shoulders blankly, while Sir Houston drew a long breath.
Neither man replied. What could they do, save to warn the War Office, who they knew would probably turn a deaf ear to all their suspicions?