Though assuredly not with fear, nor with any sense of impending dissolution, the officers and men of the _Pathshire_--and, perhaps, of the whole Navy--regarded war with Germany, in more than one respect, as they regarded death, and assumed that the same certitude existed in their shipmates’ minds; so that the end of peace was no more questioned than the end of life, but only the manner of that end and the hour of its coming. Moreover, as from men’s ordinary speech speculation concerning the after-life is excluded, so these seamen did not speak, and seldom thought, of the time that would come when the war was over. The tale that German officers toasted “The Day” produced in the British Navy sentiments altogether different from those with which it inspired British civilians. In Service messes they smiled the national smile at this effusiveness of foreigners, just as they would have smiled at the gesticulations of Frenchmen or the exceeding politeness of Japanese. To them it seemed pompous and laughable to drink solemnly to War; they would as soon have been ceremonious concerning a Gunlayers’ Test. But this German proceeding aroused in them neither fear nor the resentment that springs from fear. They regarded the Germans who were said to drink this toast, not as wicked men rejoicing in the prospect of wickedness, but as professional men who overstepped somewhat the boundaries of “good form” in their too dramatic attitude towards their profession. So long as they remained in or near their ships--that is, within the atmosphere of which Mr. Alter had spoken, and beyond the influence of their civilian friends--naval officers saw the coming war with such concentration on its professional aspect that observant visitors were amazed and sometimes shocked. War would come; Germany would be the enemy and the aggressor; but the certainty of this aggression seemed no better reason for bitterness than a chess opponent’s initial move of his King’s Pawn. It was attractive to wonder whether the King’s Pawn would be moved or whether some other opening would be selected. It was delightful to suggest the defence that Jellicoe and Prince Louis would adopt. But, just as chess players are careful for the game’s intricacies and not for stakes, so naval officers thought of the war in terms of manœuvred battle squadrons and destroyer flotillas rather than of the destinies of nations. And they assumed that German officers, being likewise professional men, were no more interested than they were in those aspects of war that were not strictly professional. They imputed to the Ober-Leutnant as he stood, wine-glass in hand, no motive more sinister than a desire to prove professional superiority; and, being themselves convinced that they could outmanœuvre and out-gun him, they were unperturbed that he should drink to his sentimental heart’s content.