As they turned into a shop to have tea, John said suddenly: “You remember that I told you how the Padre offered to lend me poetry and then said I should be happier if I didn’t read it?... I’ve just understood what he was driving at.” III If the conditions of John’s life are to be understood, Gunroom Evolutions must be once described. The detail of this part of his and his companions’ training need not be referred to a second time. The Evolution evening of which an account is to be given was not an isolated or exceptional incident in the junior midshipmen’s lives. It was part of a persistent treatment to which they were subjected, with fluctuating vigour, so long as they remained in the _King Arthur_. It was not applied every night. Sometimes there was an interval of over a week between two successive applications, and, indeed, towards the end of their service in the _King Arthur_ there were intervals even greater than this. The length of the intervals depended upon the leisure and the inclination of the senior midshipmen. But the treatment, though not regular, was never definitely suspended. It was seldom possible to say with certainty on any afternoon, “There will be no Evolutions to-night.” They were always likely to occur, and when they did there was no way of escape. The junior midshipmen grew to expect them, to remember suddenly in the happiest moment of an afternoon leave what the evening might have in store. The dread of these Evolutions permeated their waking life, entering their minds when on or off duty, interrupting their work in School, colouring their speech, inspiring their manner with furtiveness and bitterness, with resentment and fear. Only from the letters they wrote home were the Evolutions excluded, for they did their utmost to make their people believe that they were happy. The _King Arthur_ sailed for Gibraltar early in October. During the day the midshipmen carried out sea routine, keeping their watches on deck or in the Engine-room. Krame made his arrangements for the evening with so much success that, as a result of careful interchange, the midshipmen who, from eight to midnight, kept the first watch below and on the bridge were three of intermediate seniority, Norgate, Hambling, and Ollenor. Reedham, the only one remaining of the intermediate group, left the Gunroom after dinner at the same time as Winton-Black, and purposely did not return. So it happened that, when mess was over, and when the midshipmen of the Last Dog had finished their later watch-dinner, the five senior and the six junior midshipmen were left in the Gunroom together. “Warts, fall in! Howdray, you are the mate of the ship’s biscuits. Elstone, you might look out for the water.” “Water? What the hell do you want water for?”