he had a sharp
struggle to maintain a becoming composure when he heard the terse
compliment and the mention of a recommendation from that austere
officer, coupled with the intelligence that the zeppelin had dropped
into the sea off the coast of Norway.

The spell was broken, and the brisk step and gleam in his dark eyes told
their own tale as he walked quickly back to his ship.

CHAPTER XXVI

ON THE SEA FLANK OF THE ALLIED ARMIES

IT is a mere truism to say that the sea outflanks all land operations in
warfare. Yet how many people fully realise that the left wing of the
Allied armies in Belgium and France depended for its safety on the naval
command of the North Sea and English Channel? Had this sea flank been
permanently penetrated or forced back by the German fleet, the result
must have been disastrous to a large section of the Allied military
line, which actually extended from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.

Although the security of the North Sea flank did not entirely depend
upon the naval forces based on Dover, Dunkirk and Harwich--as all
operations, whether on land or sea, were overshadowed by the
unchallenged might of the Grand Fleet, which hemmed in the entire German
navy--it was upon these light forces, largely composed of units of the
new navy, that the brunt of the intermittent flank fighting and the
repeated attempts by the enemy to break through--with the aid of all
kinds of ruses and weapons--was borne for four and a half historic
years.

The detailed story of their work on the Belgian coast and in the Straits
of Dover could only be told in a separate volume, but the following
account of a bombardment and its sequel may not be without interest
here. Its relevance to anti-submarine warfare lies in the fact that the
bombardment was carried out with the object of destroying the nests of
these under-water craft established in and around Zeebrugge. Much that
has also been said in former chapters bases its claim to inclusion in
this book almost entirely on the fact that although it did not deal
exclusively with submarine fighting or minesweeping, it nevertheless
formed part of the daily operations of the anti-submarine fleets, and no
account of their work would bear any resemblance to the actual truth in
which such seemingly extraneous episodes were excluded as irrelevant.

THE BOMBARDMENT AND ITS SEQUEL

There was a flat calm, with the freshness of early summer in the air.
Zeebrugge la