"Well, that can wait for the present," said the Director of Offensives. "We've got to get you South first of all and choose the ships. Then we'll find some men to put into 'em. We want a real Prince Rupert of a Marine to lead the storming party on the Mole, and some good subalterns----" He climbed stiffly off the table and threw away the stump of his cigarette. "Eh!" he said, "why ain't I twenty years younger! They didn't do these things when I was a boy!" I heard the words, but my mind was far away in the corner of a southern dockyard at night, and as in a dream I heard Milsom's voice: "Stonework and searchlights.... I wish I knew.... I _wish_ I knew." Ye Gods! Was this what the bogie in him was driving at? "I'll wire to the Admiralty for your relief at once," said the Admiral, as I withdrew to return to my ship. "He'll be North in three days, and you can start in on this business." And so I went out, past the motionless figure of the Marine sentry in the lobby, to begin an awfully big adventure. 6 I was sitting in my cabin after dinner writing up my night order book when Jakes pushed back the curtain and stepped inside. I believe in being accessible, and don't let people knock at my door. "Hullo, Mouldy," I said, "what can I do for you?" He was our Assistant Gunnery Lieutenant, and he was called Mouldy in the Wardroom on account of a silent sardonic manner he usually affected. Popularity is a mysterious thing; no man ever sought harder to avoid it or achieved it more readily than our silent "fathom of misery," as the First Lieutenant affectionately termed him. I think fellows in a Mess read character rather well and ignore externals. Anyhow, for all his dry cynicism, I knew Mouldy to have an absurdly tender heart, and to be as sensitive of soul as a soft-shelled egg. He stood with his cap under his arm and his hands joined in front of him, the fingers twisting. "'Speak to you for a minute, sir?" he mumbled. As a matter of fact, before he introduced the formula that signifies private affairs, I guessed at the first glance that Mouldy was in trouble of some sort. I nodded at the armchair. "Take a sit-down, old lad," I said, "and have a cigarette; I shan't be a minute finishing this." I had been too busy since we returned from leave to pay much attention to affairs in the Mess. But I had observed that Mouldy never seemed to be about, and when he came to meals appeared even more taciturn and self-contained than his wont. I left him alone for a few minutes and then turned round. He was still standing before the door slowly twisting his fingers. I got a pipe and began scraping it out. "Cough it up, Mouldy," I said. He cleared his throat. "It's nothing much, sir," he replied, in a rather husky tone of forced detachment. "I--I just wanted to say that I thought I'd--er--rather like to leave the ship." I said nothing, but went on scraping out my pipe.