The M.L.'s were lying in a fairly sheltered creek--one of the numerous indentations of Scapa Flow. Beyond a neck of rocky ground could be discerned a forest of tripod masts and lofty funnels, marking the war-time anchorage of the most powerful fleet that the world has yet seen. "You are a bit far-seeing, my festive," remarked Meredith. "I am," admitted Wakefield. "After four years of it, are we going to settle down to a humdrum life, rubbing shoulders with those blighters who stayed at home and made pots of money out of the Empire's days of supreme trial? Can you imagine yourself, Meredith, on the beach with all your kit, demobbed and with nothing to do? It'll come to that. The Government were jolly glad to get hold of us, and when the war is over it'll be a case of 'Thank you and get out.' There will be thousands of young fellows, used to command and innured to peril, who will be literally on their beam ends, because they never had the chance of completing their peace-time education." "There's the sea behind us," suggested Meredith. "Is there?" questioned Wakefield, "I doubt it, unless it's potting around in private yachts and small sailing-boats. We've learnt to handle M.L.'s pretty efficiently, but after the war you try for a post as skipper of a trading steamer. Think you'll get it? You won't. You'll be up against all the red tape of Board of Trade officialdom and all that sort of thing. But Fritz hasn't accepted the terms of the Armistice yet." "By the by," remarked Kenneth. "Have you heard any more news of Cumberleigh's pal, Karl von Preussen?" "Now, how could I?" expostulated Wakefield. "Haven't we been on patrol for umpteen hours? Just before we left we heard that he was being sent under escort to London." "He's a plucky fellow, in any case," observed McIntosh. "Deucedly daring," corrected Wakefield. "I don't know," remarked Meredith. "It may be pluck or daring, or both. Hanged if I should like the job! Yet both sides employ spies. These fellows go about their work with the utmost certainty of finding themselves up against a wall and looking down the muzzles of a dozen rifles if they're caught." "Seems to me it's a despicable sort of job," said Wakefield, as he relit his pipe. "Sort of stabbing-your-foeman-in-the-back business. If, for instance, von Preussen hadn't been at Auldhaig the chances are that Morpeth wouldn't have lost his arm, and a dozen or so Q 171's men wouldn't have been killed in action." "And yet, from von Preussen's point of view, his activities resulted in two Hun submarine-cruisers being prevented from being sent to the bottom," argued Meredith. "Put the boot on the other foot and imagine von Preussen working for us, you'd say he was a dashed smart fellow. Hello! here's Cumberleigh coming alongside." A dinghy had just brought the R.A.F. captain from the beach, and Cumberleigh was looking down the ward-room ladder.