In the result, that particular and inestimably important office was gradually dropped. The department became an Intelligence Department alone. The First Sea Lord was charged with the duty of preparation and organisation for war. After various changes in the distribution of business, it was again discovered that there was no organisation for war; that the First Sea Lord, though (as I said in 1886) he had a head as big as a battleship, could not accomplish the work by himself; and a War Staff, affiliated to the Intelligence Department, was constituted in 1912. In other words, twenty-six years elapsed before my scheme was carried into full execution. On the 13th October, 1886, the substance of my confidential Memorandum on Organisation for War was published in the _Pall Mall Gazette_. It was stolen from the Admiralty by an Admiralty messenger, who was employed by both the First Sea Lord and myself. The contents of several other confidential documents having been published, suspicion fell upon the messenger, and a snare was laid for {349} him. An electric contact was made with a certain drawer in the desk of the First Sea Lord, communicating with an alarm in another quarter of the building. Upon leaving his room, the First Sea Lord told the messenger to admit no one during his absence, as he had left unlocked a drawer containing confidential documents. A little after, the alarm rang, and the messenger was discovered seated at the desk, making a copy of the documents in question. He was arrested, brought to trial, and sentenced. {350} CHAPTER XXXVI THE TWENTY-ONE MILLION In January, 1887, my routine work at the Admiralty was varied by a trip in the new submarine _Nautilus_ to the bottom of Tilbury Dock, which was very nearly the last voyage of the party in this world. The owners of the boat, Mr. Edward Wolseley and Mr. C. E. Lyon, had invited several guests, among whom was Mr. William White (afterwards Sir William Henry White, K.C.B., F.R.S., etc.), together with some officials of the Admiralty. The theory was that by pushing air cylinders to project from each side of the boat, her buoyancy would be so increased that she would rise to the surface. We sank gently to the bottom and stayed there. The cylinders were pushed out, and still we remained there. I was looking through the glass scuttle, and, although in a submarine the motion or rising or sinking is not felt by those within, I knew that we had not moved, because I could see that the muddy particles suspended in the water remained stationary. The Thames mud had us fast. In this emergency, I suggested rolling her by moving the people quickly from side to side. The expedient succeeded, none too soon; for by the time she came to the surface, the air was very foul.