Her kindness to German wounded and her last words which are twice quoted above were her woman’s protest against the folly and the wickedness of all war. She could put aside with a quiet smile the pompous military rule which laid down that certain things were to be done because men were living in a state of war. She followed a higher rule, the law of pity and of mercy, remembering the words of the great poet of her beloved country: “Earthly power doth then show likest God’s When mercy seasons justice.” JACK CORNWELL, THE BOY WHO “CARRIED ON” One day, in the summer of 1917, a group of people were standing before a large picture which was hung upon the wall of one of the rooms in the Royal Academy. The painting showed a wounded sailor-boy standing on the deck of a warship near the shield of a naval gun while shells were bursting all round him, and the gun’s crew were lying dead or wounded at his feet. “What did he do?” asked a lady after looking closely at the picture for some time. “Oh,” said a gentleman who was with her, “he just stuck it, you know.” That was all that the boy had done, “just stuck it” at the post of honour, although hurt so cruelly that he afterwards died. But his simple action had been enough to rouse the admiration of the whole British Empire, to win for him the Victoria Cross, and to afford an example to every boy and man in the British Navy. There were many brave deeds done in the Battle of Jutland, but when Admiral Beatty afterwards made out his report it was John Travers Cornwell whom he picked out as at least one glorious example. The boy won his Cross at the Battle of Jutland Bank, which began in the afternoon of Wednesday, May 31st, of the year 1916. This fight was one of the most important naval battles of the Great War and might have been as momentous as Trafalgar if the Germans had not retired when Admiral Jellicoe came up to the aid of Admiral Beatty with the Grand Fleet. We can form some idea of the terrible nature of the battle from the British losses. These included six of the larger ships and eight destroyers, as well as a large number of brave British sailors. But the German losses were very much heavier, both in ships and men. One of the British ships engaged in the fight was H.M.S. _Chester_, the crew of which included the boy John Travers Cornwell, whose age was about 16½ years. He belonged to a party whose duty it was to work one of the guns, and during the first part of the fighting he received a very bad wound. But he stayed at his post in a most exposed position, and went quietly on with his work though the men of the gun crew fell, one by one, dead or dying around him. He was hurt again and again, but he did not give up. He stood waiting for orders with the speaking tube at his ears, until the fight was over, when he was taken tenderly below.