"I've travelled fourteen miles in a barrel," he said, "and we were out for twenty-four hours in a Danish sailing skiff. You know what the weather's been like in the North Sea. Before that, the last word of writing I saw on German soil was a placard, offering a reward of five thousand marks for my detention, with a disgustingly lifelike photograph at the top. I had about fifty yards of quay to walk in broad daylight, and every other man I pa.s.sed turned to stare after me. It gives you the cold shivers down your back when you daren't look round to see if you're being followed."

Sir Henry groped in the cupboard of his desk, and produced a bottle of whisky and a syphon of soda water. His visitor nodded approvingly.

"I've touched nothing until I've reached what I consider sanctuary," he observed. "My nerves have gone rotten for the first time in my life. Do you mind, sir, if I lock the door?"

"Go ahead," Sir Henry a.s.sented.

He brought the whisky and soda himself across the room. Horridge resumed his seat and held out his hand almost eagerly. For a moment or two he shook as though he had an ague. Then, just as suddenly as it had come upon him, the fit pa.s.sed. He drained the contents of the tumbler at a gulp, set it down empty by his side, and stretched out his hand for a cigar.

"The end of my journey didn't help matters any," he went on. "I daren't even make for a Dutch port, and we were picked up eventually by a tramp steamer from Newcastle to London with coals. I hadn't been on board more than an hour before a submarine which had been following overhauled us.

I thought it was all up then, but the fog lifted, and we found ourselves almost in the midst of a squadron of destroyers from Harwich. I made another transfer, and they landed me in time to catch the early morning train from Felixstowe."

"Did they get the submarine?" his listener asked eagerly.

"Get it!" the other repeated, with a smile. "They blew it into sc.r.a.p metal."

"Plenty of movement in your life!"

"I've run the gauntlet over there once too often," Horridge said grimly.

"Just look at me now, Sir Henry. I'm twenty-nine years old, and it's only two years and a half since I was invalided out of the navy and took this job on. The last person I asked to guess my age put me down at fifty. What should you have said?"

"Somewhere near it," was the candid admission. "Never mind, Horridge, you've done your bit. You shall pa.s.s on your experience to a new hand, take your pension and try the south coast of England for a few months.

Now let's get on with it. You know what I want to hear about."

Horridge produced from his pocket a long strip of paper.

"They're there, sir," he announced, "coaled to the scuppers, every man standing to stations and steam up. There's the list."

He handed the paper across to Sir Henry, who glanced it down.

"The fast cruiser squadron," he observed. "Hm! Three new ships we haven't any note of. No transports, then, Horridge?'"

"Not a sign of one, sir," was the reply. "They're after a bombardment."

He rose to his feet, walked to a giant map of England, and touched a certain port on the east coast. Sir Henry's eyes glistened.

"You're sure?"

"It is a certainty," Horridge replied. "I've been on three of those ships. I've dined with four of the officers. They're under sealed orders, and the crew believes that they're going to escort out half a dozen commerce destroyers. But I have the truth. That's their objective," Horridge repeated, touching once more the spot upon the map, "and they are waiting just for one thing."

Sir Henry smiled thoughtfully.

"I know what they're waiting for," he said. "Perhaps if they'd a Herr Horridge to send over here for it, they'd have got it before now. As it is--well, I'm not sure," he went on. "It seems a pity to disappoint them, doesn't it? I'd love to give them a run for their money."

Horridge smiled faintly. He knew a good deal about his companion.

"They're spoiling for it, sir," he admitted. Sir Henry spoke down a telephone and a few minutes later Ensol reappeared.

"Find Mr. Horridge a comfortable room," his chief directed, "and one of our confidential typists. You can make out your report at your leisure,"

he went on. "Come in and see me when it's all finished."

"Certainly, sir," Horridge replied, rising.

Sir Henry held out his hand. He looked with something like wonder at the nerve-shattered man who had risen to his feet with a certain air of briskness.

"Horridge," he said, "I wish I had your pluck."

"I don't know any one in the service from whom you need borrow any, sir," was the quiet reply.

CHAPTER XIX

Lessingham sat upon a fallen tree on Dutchman's Common near the scene of his romantic descent, and looked rather ruefully over the moorland, seawards. Above him, the sky was covered with little ma.s.ses of quickly scudding clouds. A fugitive and watery sunshine shone feebly upon a wind-tossed sea and a rain-sodden landscape. He found a certain grim satisfaction in comparing the disorderliness of the day with the tumult in his own life. He felt that he had embarked upon an enterprise greater than his capacity, for which he was in many ways entirely unsuitable.

And behind him was the scourge of the telegram which he had received a few hours ago, a telegram harmless enough to all appearance, but which, decoded, was like a scourge to his back.

Your work is unsatisfactory and your slackness deserves reprobation.

Great events wait upon you. The object of your search is necessary for our imminent operations.

The sound of a horse's hoofs disturbed him. Captain Griffiths, on a great bay mare, glanced curiously at the lonely figure by the roadside, and then pulled up.

"Back again, Mr. Lessingham?" he remarked.

"As you see."

The Commandant fidgeted with his horse for a moment. Then he approached a little nearer to Lessingham's side.

"You are a good walker, I perceive, Mr. Lessingham," he remarked.

"When the fancy takes me," was the equable reply.

"Have you come out to see our new guns?"

"I had no idea," Lessingham answered indifferently, "that you had any."

Griffiths smiled.

"We have a small battery of anti-aircraft guns, newly arrived from the south of England," he said. "The secret of their coming and their locality has kept the neighbourhood in a state of ferment for the last week."

Lessingham remained profoundly uninterested.

"They most of them spotted the guns," his companion continued, "but not many of them have found the searchlights yet."

"It seems a little late in the year," Lessingham observed, "to be making preparations against Zeppelins."

"Well, they cross here pretty often, you know," Griffiths reminded him.

"It's only a matter of a few weeks ago that one almost came to grief on this common. We picked up their observation car not fifty yards from where you are sitting."