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"Captain Oliver gave me your name. We've been talking about an operation this morning. I think perhaps I'd better come along and see you."

"Very good, sir. When would you like to come?"

"About three o'clock this afternoon? Is that convenient to you?"

"That's quite all right for me. I'll expect you then."

He came to me in the afternoon. He was a man of forty-five or fifty, a typical soldier, very smartly dressed. His belt, his buttons, and the stars and crowns upon his shoulders were beautifully polished; his uniform sat on him without a crease, and the red staff tabs blazed out immaculate from the lapels of his tunic. He had short, greyish hair and china-blue eyes. He looked pleasant enough, determined, absolutely straight, and--I thought at first--rather stupid. You felt to look at him that he would be wonderful upon a horse.

I got up as the messenger showed him in. "Good afternoon," I said. "Will you sit down?"

He laid his hat and gloves upon the corner of my desk, and dropped his gas-mask on a chair. He said: "I understand that Admiral Thomson is away?"