The English papers they saw were somewhat old and their reports vague in the extreme.
Much excited, like everyone else, Godfrey telegraphed to the India Office, asking leave to come home direct overland, which he could not do without permission since he was in command of a number of soldiers who were returning to England on furlough.
No answer came to his wire before his ship sailed, and therefore he was obliged to proceed by long sea.

Still it had important consequences which at the moment he could not foresee.

In the Bay the tidings that reached them by Marconigram were evidently so carefully censored that out of them they could make nothing, except that the Empire was filled with great doubt and anxiety, and that the world stood on the verge of such a war as had never been known in history.
At length they came to Southampton where the pilot-boat brought him a telegram ordering him to report himself without delay.

Three hours later he was in London.

At the India Office, where he was kept waiting a while, he was shown into the room of a prominent and harassed official who had some papers in front of him.
"You are Major Knight ?" said the official.