Your Obedient Servant,
TERRISSE,
_Colonel-in-Command of Field Artillery_.
I need not observe that, in peace times, Toulon and the Grand Cap have
nothing of importance to say to each other, with the single exception
of days when there is target practice. The Grand Cap is one of the
mountains in the chain east of Toulon. It is a bold, forbidding pile of
rock, crowned with a modern and fairly strong battery. Ordinarily the
place is held by a corporal’s guard, a full garrison being stationed
there only during periods of manœuvre. The country around the mountain
is a rough uncultivated heath virtually uninhabited. Charcoal burners
camp there from time to time; but there are no farms nor permanent
settlements. The wire leading to that God-forsaken place could be down
for more than two days without the world’s coming to an end on that
account! I was intending to file the colonel’s letter and let it go at
that, when the telegraph corporal knocked at the office door.
“A call for you, Captain,” he said, “from Naval Headquarters!”
“I’ll be there directly,” I replied.
As I rose from my chair, I chanced to look at the clock over the
fireplace.
It was three P.M., to the minute.
I stepped down the corridor to the telephone booth, which was in the
adjoining room.