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CRYPTIC MESSAGES HAD, from what Khaifa could gather, always been a forte of Truus Van Der Berg.
Something is happening. Charge of the Light Brigade.
She read it again, scribbled as it was on a scrap of napkin.
"What the hell does this mean?"
"She didn't say anything," said Ironhorse. "She just somehow got it into my pocket. Spies, right?"
Frowning, Admiral Mahoney—who, Khaifa realised, was probably courting disaster by simply being in her office—took the note and read it again. Slowly, his expression changed, eyes narrowing slightly and high jaw muscles tightening.
"Admiral...?"
"Into the mouth of hell rode the six hundred," he said. "Flashed all their sabres bare, flashed as they turned in air... Charging an army, while all the world wondered."
"I beg your pardon?"
"A poem, Doctor, about a near-hopeless military offensive."
Carefully, Mahoney folded the message and handed it back to Khaifa.
"You'll have to excuse me Doctor," he said as he turned to leave.
"Where are you going, sir?" asked Ironhorse.
The old man smiled slightly.
"I'm not going to sit and wonder."