eir expression changed. Even
this comfort was taken from them.

"We had the range of you!" the British explained. The chaplain of the
Inflexible was bound to have an anecdote. I don't know why, except
that a chaplain's is not a fighting part and he may look on. His place
was down behind the armour with the doctor, waiting for wounded. He
stood in his particular steel cave listening to the tremendous blasts of
her guns which shook the Inflexible's frame, and still no wounded
arrived. Then he ran up a ladder to the deck and had a look around
and saw the little points of the German ships with the shells sweeping
toward them and the smoke of explosions which burst on board them.
It was not the British who needed his prayers that day, but the
Germans. Personally, I think the Germans are more in need of
prayers at all times because of the damnable way they act.

Perhaps the spirit of the Inflexible's story was best given by a
midshipman with the down still on his cheek. Considering how young
the British take their officer-beginners to sea, the admirals are not
young, at least, in point of sea service. He got more out of the action
than his elders; his impressions of the long cruises and the actions
had the vividness of boyhood. Down in one of the caves, doing his
part as the shells were sent up to feed the thundering guns above,
the whispered news of the progress of battle was passed on at
intervals till, finally, the guns were silent. Then he hurried on deck in
the elation of victory, succeeded by the desire to save those whom
they had fought. It had all been so simple; so like drill. You had only to
go on shooting--that was all.

Yes, he had been lucky. From the Falklands to the Dardanelles,
which was a more picturesque business than the battle. Any minute
off the Straits you did not know but a submarine would have a try at
you or you might bump into a mine. And the Inflexible did bump into
one. She had two thousand tons of water on board. It was fast work
to keep the remainder of the sea from coming in, too, and the same
kind of dramatic experience as the Lion's in reaching port. Yes, he
had been very lucky. It was all a lark to that boy.

"It never occurs to midshipmen to be afraid of anything," said one of
the officers. "The more danger, the better they like it."

In the wardroom was a piece of the mine or the torpedo, whichever it
was, that struck the Inflexible; a strange, twisted, annealed bit of
metal. Every sh