all times, as
with the rough seas that are going now, a submarine's periscope takes a
bit of spotting, likewise a floating mine, the lookout hanging on to
the rigging in blinding rain, with seas drenching over them for hours
at a time, peering into the darkness."

W. Macneile Dixon gives the following vivid account of the work of the
British navy. "So it goes, and none save these who know the sea can
form a picture or imagine at all the unrelaxing toil and strain aboard
these ocean outposts that link northern with southern climes and draw
their invisible barrier across the waters. The sea, if you would
traffic with her, demands a vigilance such as no landsman dreams of,
but here you have men who to the vigilance of the mariner have added
that of the scout, who to the sailor's task have added the sentry's,
and on an element whose moods are in ceaseless change, today bright as
the heavens, tomorrow murky as the pit.

"To this rough duty in northern seas what greater contrast than that
other in southern, the naval bombardment of the Dardanelles? How broad
and various the support given by the British fleet to the Allies can
thus be judged. Separated each from the other by some thousands of
miles, the one fleet spread over leagues of ocean, kept every ship its
lonely watch, while the bombarding vessels, concentrated in imposing
strength, attempted to force a passage through a channel, the most
powerfully protected in the world. Unsuccessfully, it is true, but in
the grand manner of the old and vanished days when war had still
something of romance, and was less the hideous thing it has become.

"We have here at least a standard by which to measure the doings of
Britain on the sea. For remember the attempt upon the Dardanelles,
with all the strength and energy displayed in it, must be thought of as
no more than a minor episode in the work of the navy, not in any way
vital to the great issue. It was not the first nor even the second
among the tasks allotted to it. For while, first of all, the great
vessels under the commander-in-chief paralyzed the activities of the
whole German navy, while second in importance, the cruising patrols
held all the doors of entrance and exit to the German ports, still
another fleet of great battleships remained free to conduct so daring
an adventure as the attempt upon the Dardanelles. Nor was this all,
for, when the unsupported fleet could do no more, another heroic
undertaking was p