"... Jess? Poor little dog: she was killed by a 4-inch shell in that Dogger Bank show. I've got an Aberdeen terrier now." * * * * "... Bit of a change up here, isn't it, after being under double awnings for so long? But the Persian Gulf was getting rather boring ... were you invalided too?" * * * * "... Not they! They won't come out--unless their bloomin' Emperor sends them out to commit a sort of hari-kiri at the end of the war.... That's what makes it so boring up here...." * * * * "As a matter of fact we caught the Turk who laid most of the mines in the Tigris. He conned us up the river--we put him in a basket and slung him on the bowsprit: just in case he got careless, what? ..." * * * * "... Beer? My dear old lad, the Japs had scoffed all the beer in Kiao-Chau before I got into the main street...." * * * * "... I had a Midshipman up with me as observer--aged 16 and 4 months precisely.... Those machines scared the Arabs badly...." * * * * "... Just a sharpened bayonet. You slung it round your neck when you were swimming.... Only had to use it once ... nasty sticky job. No joke either, crawling about naked on your belly in the dark...." * * * * "... We had a fellow chipping the ice away from the conning-tower hatch all the time we were on the surface, 'case we had to close down quick. I tell you, it was Hell, that cold! ..." * * * * "... Five seconds after we had fired our torpedo a shell hit the tube and blew it to smithereens. A near thing, I give you my word...." * * * * A Lieutenant-Commander appeared at the doorway from the smoking-room. "There will be an exhibition bout next," he shouted, "and then the final of the Light-weights!" A general move ensued on to the upper deck. The raised ring was in amidships before the after superstructure. The officers occupied tiers of chairs round three sides of the platform. The Admirals and their staffs in front, and the Post-captains of the ships that had entered competitors, just behind. On the forward side, extending the whole breadth of the ship, was the dense array of the ship's company. The majority were in tiers on planks, but a number had found their way to other points of vantage, and were clustered about the funnel casings and turrets and even astride the great guns themselves. A murmur of men's voices, punctuated by the splutter of matches as hundreds of pipes were lit and relit, went up on all sides. The judges were taking their seats at the little tables on either side of the ring, and the referee, an athletic-looking Commander, was leaning over from his chair talking to the Chaplain who was acting as time-keeper.