Occasionally I got a day’s leave. Then I went to the front, and dined with some pal in the Brigade of Guards or other regiment, shared his tent for a night, and had a peep at the trenches next day. We could see a good deal of the fighting from the ship: the sorties at night were lit up by bursting shells. By its lighted fuze I often watched the trajectory of the shell while circling through the air, beautifully timed to burst on approaching the ground. Having to be up so early every morning, I was generally in my hammock by 9.30 P.M. (sometimes earlier), and often fell asleep while the band was playing on the main deck, hard by the officers’ smoking resort. Smoking was kept uncommonly strict in those days. The hours of the ship company’s meals were the only times allowed during the daytime; in the evenings, from after evening quarters until just before the rounds were gone, at 9.30; and no officer could smoke until he was eighteen. I became an inveterate smoker, and once was within an ace of being turned out of the _Excellent_, gunnery-ship at Portsmouth (while undergoing my examination), for smoking with another fellow on the extreme fore part of the main deck, a locality well known to the naval officers. The sentry smelt the fumes, and reported us. We had tried to get out of a scuttle; but it was considerably too small, and we had to surrender, feeling it was all up, and that we should have to suffer next day. However, somehow we got off with a deuce of a wigging. On another occasion I infuriated my senior officer by smoking while on duty. I was serving in the Mediterranean under that great disciplinarian, Sir William Martin (nicknamed Pincher Martin). I was officer of the guard, and had a long nasty pull round from the Grand Harbour at Valetta to the quarantine harbour, to get the Admiral’s despatches from the P. and O. steamer. It was a blowy cold night: so I allowed all my boat’s crew to light their pipes. On arriving at Admiralty House with the Commander-in-Chief’s bag of despatches, I was kept waiting in the hall while the old gentleman was at dinner. After his meal, the Admiral descended the staircase, and, in his usual curt way, said, “You are the officer of the guard, I presume? What sort of a night is it?” I having answered his questions, he said, “You have been smoking, sir!”--“Yes, sir: I have. I have had a long pull--and a very wet one--round from the other harbour.” “This is very disgraceful,” quoth he: “I will see about this to-morrow.” However, I heard no more of it. I always thought that the restriction as to smoking was carried much too far in the Navy. When I commanded ships, I used to allow much more licence than the Queen’s Regulations authorised, and I never found cause to repent of the indulgence. Smoking was considered a great solace and help, and many a dull afternoon was got through by my officers and men over their pipes. The custom of the Service was to allow a sort of half-holiday on Thursday afternoon. The pipe