"Nothing. Your personal integrity and courage are not open to question.

We all know that. I was merely establishing a fact." Brooks hitched himself forward in his chair.

"I'm a naval doctor, Admiral Starr, I've been a doctor for over thirty years now." He smiled faintly. "Maybe I'm not a very good doctor, perhaps I don't keep quite so abreast of the latest medical developments as I might, but I believe I can claim to know a great deal about human nature, this is no time for modesty, about how the mind works, about the wonderfully intricate Interaction of mind and body. "'Isolation distorts perspective', these were your words, Admiral Starr. 'Isolation' implies a cutting off, a detachment from the world, and your implication was partly true. But, and this, sir, is the point, there are more worlds than one. The Northern Seas, the Arctic, the black-out route to Russia, these are another world, a world utterly distinct from yours. It is a world, sir, of which you cannot possibly have any conception. In effect, you are completely isolated from our world."

Starr grunted, whether in anger or derision it was difficult to say, and cleared his throat to speak, but Brooks went on swiftly.

"Conditions obtain there without either precedent or parallel in the history of war. The Russian Convoys, sir, are something entirely new and quite unique in the experience of mankind."

He broke off suddenly, and gazed out through the thick glass of the scuttle at the sleet slanting heavily across the grey waters and dun hills of the Scapa anchorage. No one spoke. The Surgeon-Commander was not finished yet: a tired man takes time to marshal his thoughts.

"Mankind, of course, can and does adapt itself to new conditions."

Brooks spoke quietly, almost to himself. "Biologically and physically, they have had to do so down the ages, in order to survive.