"It doesn't satisfy me," Garvie said heavily. "The ultimate responsibility for the safety of the «Dolphin» is mine. This message more or less gives you carte blanche to behave as you like, to ask Commander Swanson to act in ways that might be contrary to his better judgment. I can't have that."

"Does it matter what you can or can't have? You have your orders. Why don't you obey them?"

He didn't hit me. He didn't even bat an eyelid. He wasn't activated by pique about the fact that he wasn't privy to the reason for the seeming mystery of my presence there; he was genuinely concerned about the safety of the submarine. He said: "If I think it more important that the «Dolphin» should remain on an active war footing rather than go haring off on a wildgoose chase to the Arctic, or if I think you constitute a danger to the submarine, I can countermand the C.N.O.'s orders. I'm the Commander-in-Chief on the spot. And I'm not satisfied."

This was damnably awkward. He meant every word he said, and he didn't look the type who would give a hoot for the consequences if he believed himself to be in the right. I looked at both men, looked at them slowly and speculatively, the unmistakable gaze, I hoped, of a man who was weighing others in the balance; what I was really doing was thinking up a suitable story that would satisfy both. After I had given enough time to my weighing-up — and my thinking — I dropped my voice a few decibels and said: "Is that door sound-proof?"

"More or less," Swanson said. He'd lowered his own voice to match mine.

"I won't insult either of you by swearing you to secrecy or any such rubbish," I said quietly. "I want to put on record the fact that what I am about to tell you I am telling you under duress, under Admiral Garvie's threat to refuse me transport if I don't comply with his wishes."

"There will be no repercussions," Garvie said.

"How do you know? Not that it matters now. Well, gentlemen, the facts are these. Drift Ice Station Zebra is officially classed as an Air Ministry meteorological station. Well, it belongs to the Air Ministry, all right, but there's not more than a couple of qualified meteorologists among its entire personnel."