David led Rick back to his office and showed him to a chair in front of the desk, then he sorted through a map drawer, pulled out a large sheet and spread it out. "I'll have you plot the gasworks location on here. Also, the coal-gas plants." He rummaged through his satchel and found the sketch maps. "I'll draft the messages for London."

Rick looked at the map, then up at David. "Miss Hutchins called you Colonel, and that Captain Wind-something called you Sir. You've been promoted and didn't tell us."

"Let's get these done, then I'll tell you a convoluted story." He pointed to the map. "When you get them plotted, give me the latitude and longitude of each. Do you still remember that from your training at Oxford?"

"Yes, Sir. And I've had the men practice during our weekly map-reading exercises."

David nodded as he scribbled an outline, and they were both quiet while they concentrated on their tasks. Six minutes later, Rick passed a page across the desk, and David acknowledged it with another nod.

Rick remained silent as he watched David writing and rewriting. Ten minutes later, David stood and picked up the page Rick had passed. He read the first set of figures, running his right hand across the top margin of the map and his left down the side. "Good"

He repeated the process five more times, and then he sat and entered the data into his message.

Rick watched David's process. "You don't trust my plotting, do you?"

"Trust has nothing to do with it, Rick. You'll learn to always check your data, no matter what source. This may have come from the greatest map plotter in the Army, but if there were a transposed figure in recording, all our efforts could be wasted."

Rick nodded. "So much to this."

David picked up his two sheets of paper. "Let me show you how the message centre works."

David introduced Rick to Sergeant Wilkins, and then he gave instructions for the two messages. "We'll be in my office when you need the codes."

On their way back, David stopped at the library and introduced Rick to Charles. They discussed Windhead briefly, then continued to the office. Once they had settled into their chairs, Rick asked, "To whom did the messages go?"

"Directly to the top. One to the Prime Minister and one to the CIGS, the head of the General Staff."

"Why were they different?"

"You're observant, aren't you? I like that. They were essentially the same, but the PM doesn't need the target coordinates."

Rick nodded. "From what Charles said, Windhead sounds as if he's as smart as a bag of hammers."

"Now, now." David chuckled. "You mustn't insult hammers."

Rick's face alternated between looks of horror and tears of laughter as David told him about the convolutions with Wyndcom. "He's as naïve as a three-year-old and as malicious and conniving as Lucifer. Totally unpredictable, untrustworthy and despicable."

"He should be in prison for what he did." Rick shook his head. "And you dump him on me so I can play nanny for him."

"You need only supply him with mundane tasks to occupy his feeble mind. The mechanical aspect of it works, and he seems happy with the repetitiveness. It's the logical and moral parts which are scary. You need to find an ongoing series of benign, unclassified and non-endangering tasks for him to perform. Tasks with no thinking required."

"He's like the pompous buffoons at the Front that the fellows all joke about. I never made it across to see any of them – stuck instructing at Tidworth."

"I've wondered how you had been selected for that duty."

"Our whole battalion was, Sir. When we finished training on the Salisbury Plains, we stayed behind to form the Canadian Training Depot to prepare others to head to France and Belgium." Rick shrugged. "I found it odd. We who had never seen the enemy, nor had any taste of the trenches, were instructing new recruits what to do over there."

"A necessary step until those with experience return from the Front to replace the ones teaching from theory. It had to start somewhere. I hope they're now ..." David paused as Wilkins knocked. "Come in."

"We've finished encrypting both messages, Sir."

David calculated the codes and added them to the pages. "Thank you, Sergeant. Inform me if these aren't immediately receipted. We'll be in the Ambassador's office." Once Wilkins had left, David pointed to the door. "Tea time."

Colonel Picot was already with the Ambassador, and David introduced Rick to him. After they sat, Picot said, "I was talking with Colonel Pageot," He looked at Rick. "The French Military Attaché. His intelligence shows large areas of Occupied France to the east of Verdun have been emptied of civilians. Many buildings have been commandeered, and several new rail lines are being built as we speak."

David nodded. "From all of this and what we've seen, there's no doubt they intend to break through the line at Verdun and continue to Paris. From the map, that's only a hundred and forty miles."

Picot shook his head. "No. It makes no sense to attempt a breakthrough there. It's the strongest point along the entire Front, and it has been for many centuries. That's where Attila the Hun was stopped in the fifth century, and the city continued as one of Europe's best-fortified. The treaty which divided Charlemagne's Empire in the ninth century was negotiated at Verdun. Vauban improved the fortifications in the seventeenth century, and over the past few decades, the French have modernised the armament emplacements. Verdun's strength is a national pride."

"It could be a ruse, then." David unfolded his map and laid it on the table. "What weak points are there nearby?"

"I've been looking at this since you mentioned Verdun on Sunday." He chuckled. "That's why I'm so knowledgeable about the city's history. There is a ring of forts, forty-five kilometres in circumference, each overlooking its neighbours." He ran a finger across the map. "And there was a line of fortresses built between Verdun and Toul in the 1870s after Germany took Alsace and Lorraine."

"What about pushing south past Toul?" David traced a line on the map. "Between there and Nancy?"

"That had been my thought until I spoke with Pageot. The commandeered buildings, the emptying of the countryside, and the new rail lines all point to Verdun."

"But why Verdun? Unless they're ..." The Ambassador paused at the knock on the door. After tea was laid and poured and the staff had left, he continued, "Unless they're playing a game of pride."

"Pride, Sir?" David looked up from his teacup. "How so?"

"The Prince wanting to show he's better than Attila the Hun."

"But the French pride won't allow him to do it." Picot shook his head. "They'll defend Verdun to their last man."

"Maybe that's the strategy." David paused as he pursed his lips and slowly nodded. "They know the French pride, and they hope to bleed them to death defending it."