"This place gives me the holy pip," said Mouldy, as we threaded our way through the stuffy-smelling corridors of the Admiralty. "Looks as if the Navy was run by women from what I can see of the place. Phew! Shockin' frowst!" We reached the Director's room. "Never mind that," I said, and opened the door. I breathed a sigh of relief to find the room was empty, and glanced at my watch. It was ten minutes past three. Well, if Mouldy couldn't fix things in twenty minutes.... He walked to the open window and stood staring out on the Horse Guards Parade. "Humph!" he observed moodily. "I reckon the bounding blue's good enough for me.... I wouldn't come and work here for a thousand a year. What the blazes does the Director want to see me for, anyway? He's all adrift too." I was hunting about on the paper-strewn desk for the bell press I knew was there if I could find it. There were three: one marked "Secretary," another "Messenger," and a third "Stenographer." I took a long breath and pressed the third. "Mouldy," I said, "don't get into mischief. Wait here till I come back. I shan't be a minute." Then I made tracks for the door. In the semi-gloom of the passage outside a tall girl brushed past me and entered the room, pencil and notebook in hand. It was Miss Mayne, and I waited till the door closed before I looked at my watch. "I'll give them two minutes," I thought. "And if she doesn't come back----" I gave them ten minutes, as a matter of fact, then I knocked at the door and went in. "Mouldy," I said, "you needn't wait. It's all right. I mean, the Director doesn't want to see you after all." They had not apparently heard my knock, because Miss Mayne's head was resting on Mouldy's shoulder, and he was stroking her hair with his damaged hand. She was crying softly, with her cheek against his coat. Mouldy raised his head and glared at me over Miss Mayne's shoulder. She neither moved nor turned her head. "Here," he said, "you _'op_ it!" I went out into the corridor, closing the door softly behind me. Then for the Erst time since we landed I felt tired--more tired than I had ever felt in my life before. AUTHOR'S NOTE _For purposes of fiction, only the broad outlines of a great achievement have been sketched into this story; and no attempt has been made to reproduce faithfully the strategy or events of St. George's Day, _1918_. Indeed, only such ships find their replicas here as the turning-circle of the tale allows, and if the Author has anywhere endeavoured to be true to facts, it is in the portrayal of those fearsome and bloody conditions under which the Navy added so fair a page to History._ II BEHIND THE VEIL: THE STORY OF THE Q BOATS (1918) 1 FIRST BLOOD