afterwards.

"I never noticed I was tired till I got back to harbour, and then we
all turned in and absolutely slept like logs. We were seventy-two
hours with little or no sleep. The skipper was perfectly wonderful. He
never left the bridge for a minute for twenty-four hours, and was on
the bridge or in the chart-house the whole time we were out (the
chart-house is an airy dog-kennel that opens off the bridge) and I've
never seen anybody so cool and unruffled. He stood there smoking his
pipe as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.

"One quite forgot all about time. I was relieved at 4 A.M., and on
looking at my watch found I had been up there nearly twelve hours, and
then discovered I was rather hungry. The skipper and I had some cheese
and biscuits, ham sandwiches, and water on the bridge, and then I went
down and brewed some cocoa and ship's biscuit."

Not in the thick of the fight,
Not in the press of the odds,
Do the heroes come to their height
Or we know the demi-gods.

That stands over till peace.
We can only perceive
Men returned from the seas,
Very grateful for leave.

They grant us sudden days
Snatched from their business of war.
We are too close to appraise
What manner of men they are.

And whether their names go down
With age-kept victories,
Or whether they battle and drown
Unreckoned is hid from our eyes.

They are too near to be great,
But our children shall understand
When and how our fate
Was changed, and by whose hand.

Our children shall measure their worth.
We are content to be blind,
For we know that we walk on a new-born earth
With the saviours of mankind.

IV

THE MINDS OF MEN

HOW IT IS DONE

What mystery is there like the mystery of the other man's job--or what
world so cut off as that which he enters when he goes to it? The
eminent surgeon is altogether such an one as ourselves, even till his
hand falls on the knob of the theatre door. After that, in the
silence, among the ether fumes, no man except his acolytes, and they
won't tell, has ever seen his face. So with the unconsidered curate.
Yet, before the war, he had more experience of the business and detail
of death than any of the people who contemned him. His face also, as
he stands his bedside-watches--that countenance with which he shall
justify himself to his Maker--none have ev