"

XXXIII
The Fleet Puts To Sea

There is another test besides that of gun-drills and target practice
which reflects the efficiency of individual ships, and the larger the
number of ships the more important it is. For the business of a fleet is
to go to sea. At anchor, it is in garrison rather than on campaign, an
assembly of floating forts. Navies one has seen which seemed
excellent when in harbour, but when they started to get under way the
result was hardly reassuring. Some erring sister fouled her anchor
chain; another had engine-room trouble; another lagged for some
other reason; there was fidgeting on the bridges. Then one asked,
What if a summons to battle had come? Our own officers were
authority enough that the British had no superiors in any of the tests.
But strange reports dodged in and out of the alleys of pessimism in
the company of German insistence that the Tiger and other ships
which one saw afloat had been sunk. Was the fleet really held
prisoner by fear of submarines? If it could go and come freely when it
chose, the harbour was the place for it while it waited. If not, then,
indeed, the submarine had revolutionized naval warfare. Admiral
Jellicoe might lose some of his battleships before he could get into
action against the Germans.

"Oh, to hear the hoarse rattle of the anchor chains!" I kept thinking
while I was with the fleet. "Oh, to see all these monsters on the
move!"

A vain wish it seemed, but it came true. A message from the
Admiralty arrived while we were on the flagship. Admiral Jellicoe
called his Flag Lieutenant and spoke a word to him, which was
passed in a twinkling from flagship to squadron and division and ship.
He made it as simple as ordering his barge alongside, this sending of
the Grand Fleet to sea.

From the bridge of a destroyer beyond the harbour entrance we saw
it go. I shall not attempt to describe the spectacle, which convinced
me that language is the vehicle for making small things seem great
and great things seem small. If you wish words invite splendid and
magnificent and overwhelming and all the reliable old friends to come
forth in glad apparel from the dictionary. Personally, I was inarticulate
at sight of that sea-march of dull-toned, unadorned power.

First came the outriders of majesty, the destroyers; then the graceful
light cruisers. How many destroyers has the British navy? I am only
certain that it has not as many as it seems to have, wh