r tasks with that ordered discipline of industrialism which wears no
uniforms, marches without beat of drums, and toils that the ships
shall want nothing to ensure victory.

XXVII
On A Destroyer

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 a motor-car," 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.

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.

"Specialized 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."

Behind 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. For the tube
was 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 rep