He knew, from his own experience, that transports always discharge their thronging human cargoes early in the morning, and that every minute after five o'clock would increase the likelihood of his finding the soldiers already gone ashore and separated for the journeys to their various destinations.

To reach Dieppe after the departure of the soldiers was simply unthinkable to Tom.

Whatever excuse there might have been to the authorities for his failure, that also he could not allow to enter his thoughts.

He had been trusted to do something and he was going to do it.
Perhaps it was this dogged resolve which deterred him from doing something which he had thought of doing; that is, acquainting the authorities at Aumale with his plight and letting them wire on to Dieppe.

Surely the wires between Aumale and the coast must be working, but suppose---- Suppose the Germans should demolish those wires with a random shot from some great gun such as the monster which had bombarded Paris at a distance of seventy miles.