He then lit a cigarette and took his stand at the narrow
end, producing from his pocket seven hundred and fifty neat red tickets
(numbered from one to seven hundred and fifty) which the chief writer
had made out for him the night before.
At 8.45 Number One arrived. To help him he had brought a couple of
watch-keepers, a surgeon, three engineers, a naval instructor and the
captain of Marines. He only paused to borrow one side of the gunner's V
and all but forty of the A.P.'s tickets, and passed on down the road.
When he had reached a suitable point about a hundred yards south of the
A.P. he had the purloined rope stretched slantwise, in such a way that
the only means of passing it was a little passage a yard wide between
the rope and the ditch on the right of the road. A little nearer still
to the starting-point he had a large placard erected with the words
"Keep to the Right" painted on it.
Punctually at 9.0 the Commander arrived with a piece of string and the
P.M.O. They took up their stand one on each side of the road opposite
the placard.
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