and go right ahead and laugh at being wet to the bones, because I should know that when I got to be forty or fifty, if I had served well, I should command a squadron with thousands of men and a lot of ships!... Maybe I’m wrong and the English too, but I wish you would explain to me why we don’t do the same as they. I told you that the _Pamir_ made two trips between Sunderland and the Grand Fleet. On the second they sent us to hell and gone, up north into the midst of the islands where there was filthy weather, and where the _Pamir_ coaled flotillas of destroyers and scouts. These are on the go all the time--with intervals of leave in England, you may be sure--near German waters, and they say that the Boches will never come out for a real big battle, but that it isn’t worth while trying to get them out of their holes because their coast waters are full of mines and submarines and the game wouldn’t be worth the candle. The English would be blown up before getting anywhere near. Although this is not what the English and French papers say, I think we can believe those who have been there. “If there is a serious battle,” they say, “it will be a surprise; not because we shall have willed it.” The Boches, it seems, are informed from England itself, where a lot of their countrymen are at large, and as soon as an English ship puts to sea, Berlin is warned. Whereas when the Germans come to bombard the English coasts, no one knows about it until the shells begin to fall. They also say that the Allies are a little too good about respecting neutral territorial waters and that the Germans don’t hesitate to borrow Danish or Dutch waters to sneak from Kiel over to Ostend or Bruges. This reminds me of what I saw off the coast of Italy the first time we coaled the French Fleet. While our cruisers and destroyers were stopping ships at sea, the _Pamir_ ran across lots of boats close to the Italian coast, going up to Trieste or in that direction, and they were well-loaded, believe me. If that’s the way we are blockading the Boches, they won’t need to cry “Kamerad!” yet awhile! I wish you would tell me how many cargoes of contraband the Navy has seized. I ask you a lot of questions, but that’s because you wrote in your last letter that it interested you, too, to know what goes on outside of your _Auvergne_. As you added that my mind was improving with the war, I address myself to my sometime lieutenant, if you please, in order to form my little judgment! You know I tell you everything that comes into my head, just as I used to do when you said that I talked hot air. Anyway, it’s something if I’ve learnt to listen! Good Lord, how stupid I must have been, only two years ago! Fourgues, too, claims that I improve.