erything that steams has her individual peculiarity, and the
great thing is, at overhaul, to keep to it and not develop a new one.
If, for example, through some trick of her screws not synchronising, a
destroyer always casts to port when she goes astern, do not let any
zealous soul try to make her run true, or you will have to learn her
helm all over again. And it is vital that you should know exactly what
your ship is going to do three seconds before she does it. Similarly
with men. If any one, from Lieutenant-Commander to stoker, changes his
personal trick or habit--even the manner in which he clutches his chin
or caresses his nose at a crisis--the matter must be carefully
considered in this world where each is trustee for his neighbour's
life and, vastly more important, the corporate honour.

"What are the destroyers doing just now?" I asked.

"Oh--running about--much the same as usual."

The Navy hasn't the least objection to telling one everything that it
is doing. Unfortunately, it speaks its own language, which is
incomprehensible to the civilian. But you will find it all in "The
Channel Pilot" and "The Riddle of the Sands."

It is a foul coast, hairy with currents and rips, and mottled with
shoals and rocks. Practically the same men hold on here in the same
ships, with much the same crews, for months and months. A most senior
officer told me that they were "good boys"--on reflection, "quite good
boys"--but neither he nor the flags on his chart explained how they
managed their lightless, unmarked navigations through black night,
blinding rain, and the crazy, rebounding North Sea gales. They
themselves ascribe it to Joss that they have not piled up their ships
a hundred times.

"I expect it must be because we're always dodging about over the same
ground. One gets to smell it. We've bumped pretty hard, of course, but
we haven't expended much up to date. You never know your luck on
patrol, though."

THE NATURE OF THE BEAST

Personally, though they have been true friends to me, I loathe
destroyers, and all the raw, racking, ricochetting life that goes with
them--the smell of the wet "lammies" and damp wardroom cushions; the
galley-chimney smoking out the bridge; the obstacle-strewn deck; and
the pervading beastliness of oil, grit, and greasy iron. Even at
moorings they shiver and sidle like half-backed horses. At sea they
will neither rise up and fly clear like the hydroplanes, nor dive and
be done with it