"That's sound," said the Submarine expert. "Because, you know, in the Navy we all look at life from different points of view, according to our jobs. No, thanks, I won't smoke till we get outside. Now, those fellows"--the speaker jerked his head astern to the great grey Battleships--"those big-ship wallahs--they're only just beginning to take Us seriously. I put in my big-ship time at the beginning of the war--we do a year in a big ship, you know, for our sins--and the fellows in the Mess used to jeer at Us. They talked about their rams...." He laughed. "Rams!" he repeated. "They called us pirates. P'raps we were, but we didn't carry bathrooms in those early boats--nor yet manicure sets.... Port ten! ... Ease to five--steady!" The speaker was silent for a moment, musing. "I don't know that I altogether blame 'em." He turned to his First Lieutenant, a youth some years his junior with preposterously long eyelashes. "'Member the manoeuvres before the War?" The other laughed and nodded. "I torpedoed my revered parent's Battleship," continued the speaker, "at two hundred yards in broad daylight and a flat calm." He chuckled. "Lor' bless me! It's like a fairy tale, lookin' back on it after two years of war." "Haven't they rather altered their tune since, though?" asked the visitor. "A bit, yes. They don't quite know how to take us nowadays. We come in from patrol and tie up alongside them to give the men the run of the canteen; they ask us to dinner and give cinema shows for the sailors, bless 'em. We're beginning to feel quite the giddy heroes when we find ourselves among the Battle-fleet." "Cold feet," interposed the First Lieutenant. "That's what's behind it all. We're It...." Sir William laughed. "Well," he said, "what about those craft yonder? There I suppose you have yet another point of view?" A division of Armed Trawlers lumbered out of their path, the bow gun on each blunt forecastle rising and dipping as they plunged in the incoming swell. "Ah!" said the Lieutenant-Commander, "they're different. They never had any preconceived notions about us or their own invulnerability. The boot's on the other foot there. We used to jeer at them once; but now I'm not so certain...." "You never know what the hell they'll do next," explained the Lieutenant with the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheek-bone. "That's the trouble. 'They knows nothin' an' they fears nothin','" he quoted, smiling. "The personal element comes in more, I suppose, in those craft," said Sir William musingly. He focused his glasses on a turf cabin ashore. "The Admiral was telling me that a London brain specialist was born in one of those crofter's huts."