Losing one’s heart to the British navy—“Specialised in torpedo work”—Watching for submarines—Passing a flotilla—The eyes of the navy—Cold on the bridge—A jumpy sea—Look out for the spray—A symphony in mechanism—Around a bend and: the sea power of England!

Now we were on our way to the great thing—to our look behind the curtain at the hidden hosts of sea-power. Of some eight hundred tons’ burden our steed, doing eighteen knots, which was a dog-trot for one of her speed.

“A destroyer is like an automobile,” said the commander. “If you rush her all the time she wears out. We give her the limit only when necessary.”

On the bridge the zest of travel on a dolphin of steel held the bridle on eagerness to reach the journey’s end. We all like to see things well done and here one had his first taste of how well things are done in the British navy, which did not have to make ready for war after the war began. With an open eye one went, and the experience of other navies as a balance for his observation; but one lost one’s heart to the British navy and might as well confess it now. A six months’ cruise with our own battleship fleet was a proper introduction to the experience. Never under any flag not my own did I feel so much at home.

After the arduous monotony of the trenches and after the traffic of London, it was freedom and sport and ecstasy to be there, with the rush of salt air on the face! Our commander was under thirty years of age; and that destroyer responded to his will like a stringed instrument. He seemed a part of her, her nerves welded to his.

“Specialised in torpedo work,” he said, in answer to a question. That is the way of the British navy: to learn one thing well before you go on with another. If in the course of it you learn how to command, larger responsibilities await you. If not—there’s retired pay.

Inside a shield which sheltered them from the spray on the forward deck, significantly free of everything but that four-inch gun, its crew was stationed. The commander had only to lean over and speak through a tube and give a range, and the music began. That tube bifurcated at the end to an ear-mask over a youngster’s head; a youngster who had real sailor’s smiling blue eyes, like the commander’s own. For hours he would sit waiting in the hope that game would be sighted. No fisherman could be more patient or more cheerful.

“Before he came into the navy he was a chauffeur. He likes this,” said the commander.

“In case of a submarine you do not want to lose any time; is that it?”

“Yes,” he replied. “You never can tell when we might have a chance to put a shot into Fritz’s periscope or ram him—Fritz is our name for submarines.”

Were all the commanders of destroyers up to his mark, one wondered. How many more had the British navy caught young and trained to such quickness of decision and in the art of imparting it to his men? Three hundred revolutions! The destroyer changed speed. Five hundred! She changed speed again.

Out of the mist in the distance flashed a white ribbon knot that seemed to be tied to a destroyer’s bow and behind it another destroyer, and still others, lean, catlike, but running as if legless, with greased bodies sliding over the sea. We snapped out some message to them and they answered as passing birds on the wing before they swept out of sight behind a headland with uncanny ease of speed. How many destroyers had England running to and fro in the North Sea, keen for the chase and too quick at dodging and too fast to be in any danger of the under-water dagger thrust of the assassins whom they sought. We know the figures in the naval lists, but there cannot be too many. They are the eyes of the navy; they gather information and carry a sting in their torpedo tubes.

It was chilly there on the bridge, with the prospect too entrancing not to remain even if one froze. But here stepped in naval preparedness with thick, short coats of llama wool.

“Served out to all the men last winter, when we were in the thick of it patrolling,” the commander explained. “You’ll not get cold in that!”

“And yourself?” was suggested to the commander.

“Oh, it is not cold enough for that in September! We’re hardened to it. You come from the land and feel the change of air; we are at sea all the time,” he replied. He was without even an overcoat; and the ease with which he held his footing made land lubbers feel their awkwardness.

A jumpy, uncertain tidal sea was running. Yet our destroyer glided over the waves, cut through them, played with them, and let them seem to play with her, all the while laughing at them with the power of the purring vitals that drove her steadily on.

“Look out!” which at the front in France was a signal to jump for a “funk pit.” We ducked, as a cloud of spray passed above the heavy canvas and clattered like hail against the smokestack. “There won’t be any more!” said the commander. He was right. He knew that passage. One wondered if he did not know every gallon of water in the North Sea, which he had experienced in all its moods.

Sheltered by the smokestack down on the main deck, one of our party, who loved not the sea for its own sake but endured it as a passageway to the sight of the Grand Fleet, had found warmth, if not comfort. Not for him that invitation to come below given by the chief engineer, who rose out of a round hole with a pleasant, “How d’y do!” air to get a sniff of the fresh breeze, wizard of the mysterious power of the turbines which sent the destroyer marching so noiselessly. He was the one who transferred the captain’s orders into that symphony in mechanism. Turn a lever and you had a dozen more knots; not with a leap or a jerk, but like a cat’s sleek stretching of muscles. Not by the slightest tremor did you realise the acceleration; only by watching some stationary object as you flew past.

Now a sweep of smooth water at the entrance to a harbour, and a turn—and there it was: the sea power of England!