ause the bolts that held it
down were smashed (the wire hawser must have pretty well pulled it off
its seat), and again because the hull beneath it leaked on pressure.
She went down to make sure of it. But she drilled and tapped and
adjusted, till in a short time the gun worked again and killed
steamers as it should. Meanwhile, the whole boat leaked. All the
plates under the old gun-position forward leaked; she leaked aft
through damaged hydroplane guards, and on her way home they had to
keep the water down by hand pumps while she was diving through the
nets. Where she did not leak outside she leaked internally, tank
leaking into tank, so that the petrol got into the main fresh-water
supply and the men had to be put on allowance. The last pint was
served out when she was in the narrowest part of the Narrows, a place
where one's mouth may well go dry of a sudden.

Here for the moment the records end. I have been at some pains not to
pick and choose among them. So far from doctoring or heightening any
of the incidents, I have rather understated them; but I hope I have
made it clear that through all the haste and fury of these multiplied
actions, when life and death and destruction turned on the twitch of a
finger, not one life of any non-combatant was wittingly taken. They
were carefully picked up or picked out, taken below, transferred to
boats, and despatched or personally conducted in the intervals of
business to the safe, unexploding beach. Sometimes they part from
their chaperones "with many expressions of good will," at others they
seem greatly relieved and rather surprised at not being knocked on the
head after the custom of their Allies. But the boats with a hundred
things on their minds no more take credit for their humanity than
their commanders explain the feats for which they won their respective
decorations.

DESTROYERS AT JUTLAND

(1916)

"Have you news of my boy Jack?"
_Not this tide._
"When d'you think that he'll come back?"
_Not with this wind blowing, and this tide._

"Has any one else had word of him?"
_Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing and this tide._

"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"
_None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he didn't shame his kind
Not even with that wind blowing and that tide._

_Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every t