nt for the Distinguished Service Order. The captain's
report, which I read, is terse, and needs to be visualized. There is
simply a statement of the latitude and longitude, the time of day, the
fact that the wave of a periscope was sighted at 1,500 yards by the
quartermaster first class on duty; general quarters rung, the executive
officer signals full speed ahead, the commanding officer takes charge and
manoeuvres for position--and then something happens which the censor may
be fussy about mentioning. At any rate, oil and other things rise to the
surface of the sea, and the Germans are minus another submarine. The
chief machinist's mate, however, comes in for special mention. It seems
that he ignored the ladder and literally fell down the hatch, dislocating
his shoulder but getting the throttle wide open within five seconds!

In this town, facing the sea, is a street lined with quaint houses
painted in yellows and browns and greens, and under each house the kind
of a shop that brings back to the middleaged delectable memories of
extreme youth and nickels to spend. Up and down that street on a bright
Saturday afternoon may be seen our Middle-Western jackies chumming with
the British sailors and Tommies, or flirting with the Irish girls, or
gazing through the little panes of the show-windows, whose enterprising
proprietors have imported from the States a popular brand of chewing-gum
to make us feel more at home. In one of these shops, where I went to
choose a picture post-card, I caught sight of an artistic display of a
delicacy I had thought long obsolete--the everlasting gum-drop. But when
I produced a shilling the shopkeeper shook his head. "Sure, every day
the sailors are wanting to buy them of me, but it's for ornament I'm
keeping them," he said. "There's no more to be had till the war will be
over. Eight years they're here now, and you wouldn't get a tooth in
them, sir!" So I wandered out again, joined the admiral, and inspected
the Bluejackets' Club by the water's edge. Nothing one sees, perhaps, is
so eloquent of the change that has taken place in the life and fabric of
our navy. If you are an enlisted man, here in this commodious group of
buildings you can get a good shore meal and entertain your friends among
the Allies, you may sleep in a real bed, instead of a hammock, you may
play pool, or see a moving-picture show, or witness a vaudeville worthy
of professionals, like that recently given in honou