of England depends on you. Does it
matter if they shoot you, or hang you, or send you to the Tower, so long
as England is saved?" And Mr. Churchill did as he was bidden--the
greatest act in his life, and perhaps one of the most courageous acts in
the history of statesmanship. Lord Fisher said afterwards, "You may not
like Winston, but he has got the heart of a lion."

Thus was England saved, and Germany doomed. Before war was declared the
British Fleet held the seas, and in command of that Fleet was the
quickest working brain in the Navy.

On one occasion, during the dark days of the war, I was lunching at the
Admiralty with Lord Fisher, who had then been recalled to office. He
appeared rather dismal, and to divert him I said, "I've got some good
news for you--we are perfectly safe and Germany is beaten." He looked up
from his plate and regarded me with lugubrious eyes. I then told him
that Lord Kitchener had been down at Knole with the Sackvilles and had
spent a whole day in taking blotting-paper impressions of the beautiful
mouldings of the doors for his house at Broome. "Does that make you feel
safe?" he demanded; and then, pointing to a maidservant at the
sideboard, he added, "See that parlourmaid?--well, she's leaving;
yesterday I spent two hours at Mrs. Hunt's registry office interviewing
parlourmaids. Now, do you feel safe?"

His return to the Admiralty brought him no happiness--save when he sent
Admiral Sturdee to sea to avenge the death of Admiral Cradock. He was
perhaps too insistent on victory, a crushing and overwhelming victory,
for a Fleet on which hung the whole safety of the Allies, and a Fleet
which had experienced the deadly power of the submarine. He was
certainly not too old for work. To the last, looking as if he was bowed
down to the point of exhaustion by his labours, he outworked all his
subordinates. As for energy, he would have hanged I know not how many
admirals if he had been in power during the last stages of the war.

His experience of Downing Street filled him up to the brim with contempt
for politicians. It was not so much their want of brains that troubled
him, but their total lack of character. Only here and there did he come
across a man who had the properties of leadership in even a minor
degree: for the most part they had no eyes for the horizon or for the
hills whence cometh man's salvation; they were all ears, and those ears
were leaned to the ground to catch the rumbles of poli