g raiders by
land or sea, of those responsible for the safety of England and the
mastery of the seas.

It is from the navy yard that the ships go forth to battle and to the
navy yard they must return for supplies and for the grooming beat of
hammers in the dry dock. Those who work at a navy yard keep the
navy's house; welcome home all the family, from Dreadnoughts to
trawlers, give them cheer and shelter and bind up their wounds.

The quarter-deck of action for Admiral Lowry, commanding the great
base on the Forth, which was begun before the war and hastened to
completion since, was a substantial brick building. Adjoining his office,
where he worked with engineers' blue prints as well as with sea
charts, he had fitted up a small bedroom where he slept, to be at
hand if an emergency arose.

Partly we walked, as he showed us over his domain of steam-
shovels, machine shops, cement factories, of building and repairs, of
coaling and docking, and partly we rode on a car that ran over
temporary rails laid for trucks loaded with rocks and dirt. Borrowing
from Peter to pay Paul, a river bottom had been filled in back of the
quays with material that had been excavated to form a vast basin with
cement walls, where squadrons of Dreadnoughts might rest and
await their turn to be warped into the great dry docks which open off it
in chasmlike galleries.

"The largest contract in all England," said the contractor. "And here is
the man who checks up my work," he added, nodding to the lean,
Scottish naval engineer who was with us. It was clear from his looks
that only material of the best quality and work that was true would be
acceptable to this canny mentor of efficiency, "And the workers?
Have you had any strikes here?"

"No. We have employed double the usual number of men from the
start of the war," he said. "I'm afraid that the Welsh coal troubles have
been accepted as characteristic. Our men have been reasonable and
patriotic. They have shown the right spirit. If they hadn't, how could
we have accomplished that?"

We were looking down into the depths of a dry dock blasted out of the
rock, which had been begun and completed within the year. And we
had heard nothing of all this through those twelve months! No writer,
no photographer, chronicled this silent labour! Double lines of guards
surrounded the place day and night. Only tried patriots might enter
this world of a busy army in smudged workmen's clothes, bending to
thei