The Admiralty are extraordinarily good about dispatching mails to our ships, but sudden and unexpected movements often make it impossible to receive them with any regularity. When war broke out everyone wondered how their folk at home would manage, whether money and food would be easily obtainable. In our own case we were moved from our original sphere of operations, and did not get our first mail till October 19th, over eleven weeks after leaving England, and many other ships may have fared even worse. Again, our Christmas mail of 1914 was not received till six months afterwards, having followed us to the Falkland Islands, then back home, out again round the Cape of Good Hope, finally arriving at the Dardanelles. On this occasion one of the men had a pound of mutton and a plum pudding sent him by his wife; it can easily be imagined with what delight he welcomed these delicacies, which had been through the tropics several times, as did those others whose parcels were anywhere near his in the mail bag. It may appear a paltry thing to those who get their daily post regularly, but the arrival of a mail at sea is a very real joy, even to those who get but few letters. The newspapers are eagerly devoured, and events, whose bare occurrence may have only become known through meagre wireless communiqués, are at length made comprehensible. Darkening ship at sunset is uncomfortable, more particularly in the tropics, when the heat on the messdecks becomes unbearable from lack of air. However, this is now much improved by supplying wind-scoops for the scuttles, fitted with baffles to prevent the light from showing outboard. Everyone sleeps on deck who can, risking the pleasures of being trodden upon in the dark, or of being drenched by a sudden tropical shower, when the scrum of men hastily snatching up their hammocks and running for the hatches equals that of any crowd at a football match. On moonless nights little diversions are constantly occurring. A certain officer, perfectly sober, on one occasion walked over the edge of the boat-deck into space, and then was surprised to find that he was hurt. The hardships and anxieties of the life are probably overrated by people ashore. The very routine helps to make the sailor accustomed to the strange and unnatural conditions, nearly all of which have their humorous side. As is the way of the world, we on the coast of South America all envied those in the Grand Fleet at this time, in modern ships fitted with refrigerating rooms and plenty of good fresh food; and they, no doubt, willingly would have changed places with us, being sick to death of the uneventful life, cold, rough weather, and constant submarine strain from which we were fortunately immune. Events took such a shape a few months later that those of us who were fortunate enough to be in the battle of the Falkland Islands would not have been elsewhere for all the world. CHAPTER V THE SINKING OF THE "CAP TRAFALGAR"