Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/278

240 talk. Aside from that there was nothing. Except for the old man, who might be of foreign birth, the people of the neighbourhood were beyond question loyal.

The intelligence officer was recalled, but the trawler was kept on that post just at the edge of the radius of the red light. The commander had a detailed map of the cove and the beach and the headland. He waited.

"That man," he told his crew, can't know his lamp is visible at this distance. Some fine night —"

And one very dark night the red winking came across the water. The clouds were so thick that the commander knew he could sail close to the headland unobserved. He felt, in fact, when he entered the cove that his presence there was quite unsuspected.

This business of waiting in the dark for the shaping of unknown forces into defeat or victory is the hardest portion of the men assigned to intelligence work. The red light no longer showed. Although the boat was not many yards from the beach there was nothing to be seen. There were no sounds beyond the cries of a rising wind. And the minutes lengthened. The commander had reached the conclusion that the affair was founded on a delusion, or else some trick of