"You saw who it was?" Hansen asked.

"I did indeed. Andy Bandy, no less."

"I didn't hear that, Rawlings," Hansen said coldly.

"Vice-Admiral John Garvie, U. S. Navy, sir."

"Andy Bandy, eh?" Hansen said pensively. He grinned at me. "Admiral Garvie. Officer Commanding U. S. Naval Forces in Nato. Now, this is very interesting, I submit. I wonder what he's doing here."

"World War III has just broken out," Rawlings announced. "It's just about time for the admiral's first Martini of the day, and no lesser crisis — "

"He didn't by any chance fly down with you in that chopper from Renfrew this afternoon?" Hansen interrupted shrewdly.

"No."

"Know him, by any chance?"

"Never even heard of him until now."

"Curiouser and curiouser," Hansen murmured.

A few minutes passed in desultory talk — the minds of Hansen and his two men were obviously very much on the reason for the arrival of Admiral Garvie — and then a snowfilled gust of chilled air swept into the canteen as the door opened and a blue-coated sailor came in and crossed to our table.

"The captain's compliments, Lieutenant. Would you bring Dr. Carpenter to his cabin, please?"

Hansen nodded, rose to his feet and led the way outside. The snow was beginning to lie now, the darkness was coming down fast and the wind from the north was bitingly cold. Hansen made for the nearest gangway, halted at its head as he saw seamen and dockyard workers, insubstantial and spectral figures in the swirling, flood-lit snow, carefully easing a slung torpedo down the for'ard hatch, turned and headed toward the after gangway. We clambered down and at the foot Hansen said: "Watch your step, Doc. It's a little slippery hereabouts."

It was all that, but with the -thought of the ire-cold waters of the Holy Loch waiting for me if I put a foot wrong I made no mistake. We passed through the hooped canvas shelter covering the after hatch and dropped down a steep metal ladder into a warm, scrupulously clean and gleaming engine room packed with a baffling complexity of gray-painted ma. chinery and instrument panels, its every corner brightly illuminated with shadowless fluorescent lighting.