Passing out of the _Britannia_, the head of his year, with every possible prize that could be taken, he had qualified--again with three first prizes--as sub-lieutenant in 1878, being appointed a full lieutenant three years later, with three first-class certificates. Two years after this, he had taken part in the Egyptian campaign, obtaining the silver medal for the expedition, and also the Khedive's Bronze Star. Returning to Greenwich for a course in gunnery, he had obtained the £80 prize for gunnery lieutenants, and, soon afterward, had been appointed a Junior Staff Officer at the _Excellent_ School of Gunnery at Portsmouth; and it was here that he had come into contact, and begun a lifelong friendship, with the greatest naval genius of modern times, then plain Captain Fisher, and scarcely known outside the service. It was while still a lieutenant that, in 1886, he had received the Board of Trade Medal for gallantry {18} in a forlorn attempt--during which he was himself shipwrecked--to save a stranded crew near Gibraltar. Becoming a commander in 1891, he had been appointed to Sir George Tryon's flagship, the ill-fated _Victoria_, afterward to be sunk during manoeuvres--Commander Jellicoe himself, ill in his cabin at the moment, having the narrowest escape from drowning. Six years later, he had become a captain, joining Sir Edward Seymour's flagship, the _Centurion_, on the China Station; and it was in China that, three years afterward, he had seen his next active service during the Boxer Rebellion. In this he had been Chief Staff Officer to Sir Edward Seymour, who commanded the Naval Brigade; and, at the Battle of Pietsang, on June 21, 1900, he had been very severely wounded. Happily he had recovered, receiving for his services the Companionship of the Bath, and, four years later, had found himself at the Admiralty as Director of Naval Ordnance--a position that he had held during the revolution produced by the appearance of the first British _dreadnought_. He had also been largely responsible for the immense improvement in our gunnery, associated with the name of Admiral Sir Percy Scott. In 1907 Captain Jellicoe had been promoted to the rank of Rear-Admiral, being appointed to a command in the Atlantic Fleet a little later in the same year. In 1908 he had become one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty and Controller of the Navy, and, two years afterward, he had reached the vice-admirals' list and had succeeded to the command of the Atlantic Fleet. In 1911, having already been made a K.C.V.O., he had been {19} honoured with a K.C.B. at the coronation of King George V, and, in 1912, after a short spell of service in command of the Second Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet, he had become Second Sea Lord, the position he was holding on the outbreak of war.