The deep corrugation in Admiral Goette's brow grew deeper still when he heard this plain warning, and the corners of his hard cynical mouth drew down at the corners as the thin lips were compressed in his effort at self-control. Shuffling uneasily in his chair, he leaned over as though to speak to the sardonic Hinzman on his right, but thought better of it, and straightened up again. Then his deep-set eyes wandered to the large-scale map of the Western Front which occupied most of the wall of the cabin toward which he faced. The row of pins, which had marked the line of the Front at the moment of the armistice, but had now been moved up and over the Rhine in three protuberant bridgeheads, evidently brought home to him the futility of any further circumlocutions for the present. The muscles of the aggressively squared shoulders relaxed, the combative lines of the face melted into furrows of deepest depression, and the pugnacious jaw was drawn in as the iron-grey head was bowed in submission. His throaty "It shall be done as you say, sir," told that the first lesson had sunk home. An undertaking on the part of the German Commission to secure, and to send off at an as early hour as practicable the following morning, the required "safe conduct," brought the first conference to a close. The kinema man, who endeavoured to take a picture of the departure from cover, in order not to offend the sensibilities of his distinguished subjects, spoiled a film as a consequence of his consideration. Observing that the galley scuttle opened out upon the quarter-deck, but not (in his haste) that the pots of beans simmering on the range were filling the air with clouds of steam as thick as fragrant, set up his machine just inside. Engrossed in turning the crank as one Hun after another went through his heel-clicking round of salutes, he failed to notice the translucent mask of moisture condensing on his lens. The natural result was that this particular reel of film, when it came to be developed, had very little to differentiate it from another reel he exposed the following morning on the men "doubling round," the latter having been taken with the cap over the lens.