Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/290

 the Mediterranean fleet paid his official visit to the governor of Gibraltar, and the governor, in turn, was received with honors upon the quarterdeck of the flagship. But under the superficial courtesies of fanfare and present arms the stern business of coaling fleet progressed at high tension. It was necessary that all of the fighting machines have their bunkers filled by noon of the following day. Every minute that the Channel up under the murky North Sea fogs lay without full strength of her fleet protection was added danger for England.

That morning, Captain Woodhouse went on duty in the signal tower. Major Bishop, his superior, had summoned him to his office immediately after breakfast and assigned him to his tasks there. Sufficient proof, Woodhouse assured himself, with elation, that he had come through the fire in General Crandall's library, tested and found genuine. Through this pretext and that, he had been kept off duty the day before, denied access to the slender stone tower high up on the Rock's crest which was the motor center of Gibraltar's ganglia of defense.

The small office in which Woodhouse was installed was situated at the very top of the