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"No, that's right," he said. "There are several of them in Falmouth harbour now."

"Big, beamy boats, with a high sheer and one mast laid down in a tabernacle? Go everywhere with their engine?"

He nodded. "If you ever saw their nets you'd know them again. Very fine-mesh nets, dyed blue."

The suggestion crystallized the image in my mind: blue gossamer nets hung up to the one mast and drying in the sunlight, very foreign-looking in Falmouth harbour. "Of course I know those boats," I said. "I saw them there this spring."

I stubbed out the butt of my cigarette and glanced at him. "What is the exact proposal, sir?"

He fixed his candid, china-blue eyes on me. "My young men want to cut out one of the Raumboote and destroy it."

"I see," I said thoughtfully. We sat in silence for a minute. "How do they propose to do that?"

He said: "Let me give you the whole thing. I told you that there were a hundred and forty-seven sardine-boats sailing from Douarnenez. That's quite true, but for one reason or another not more than about sixty are at sea on any one night. They go out after midday, according to the tide, and go to their grounds--thirty to sixty miles away perhaps, anywhere between Ushant and the Saints. That depends on where the fish are."