The King's Commisar

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Extract from the diaries of the late Capt. J. R. A, Walters, DSC, RN, Captain (1917-21) of HMS

Airedale. Entry for April 19,1918:

During the night the man came up on my bridge and asked permission to remain a while. The sea was high that night, for we were bucking into a strong nor’easter. For two hours or so he stood quietly by the bridge wing door, watching Airedale's bow lift and fall, half a smile on his lips and an odd look on his face. He was a handsome fellow, too - what one could see of him behind the black whiskers, for he had a full set - and I judged from his stance and bearing he must be Royal Navy, and twenty-six years of age or thereabouts. He stood easily on the canting deck, back straight as a gun barrel. A sailor, beyond a doubt.

The man who must have been Walters's passenger was born in 1892, and he lived to be seventy-eight, but that is the only description of him in youth anyone was able to find, though his history was later investigated with great vigour by squads of Treasury men. So many of his tracks had been covered by time or by events or, more often, with intent, that hardly anything remained. The foregoing passage of Captain Walter's diary entry is also not without interest: Ordered aboard flagship and went, all a-tremble, wondering what offence I had committed, only to be greeted, on saluting the quarter-deck, by Beatty's glossy flag lieutenant in person!. Given orders: Airedale to be made ready at once for sea. She would be temporarily detached from the fleet and would await, with steam up, the arrival of an unnamed man who would be brought to her in Admiral Beatty's own barge. When the man was aboard, Airedale was to sail at once. Only after clearing Scapa was I to open the sealed envelope containing sailing orders.

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