The Luck of the Navy is not always good. There are wardrooms in the Grand Fleet within which to mention any Joss except of the most devilish blackness may lead to blasphemy and even to blows. One can sympathise. Those who sped on May 31st, 1916, across 400 miles of sea and who, though equipped with all the paraphernalia of fire-directors, spotting-officers, range-fingers, control instruments, grizzled gun-layers and tremendous wire-wound guns, failed to get in a single shot at an elusive enemy, are dangerous folk to chaff. If to them had been vouchsafed the great chance which came to the Salt of the Earth and the Fifth B. S. there would not now be a German battleship afloat! Still, in face of blazing examples of bad Joss such as this, I will maintain that there are pixies sitting up aloft who have a tender regard for the Royal Navy and who, every now and then, ladle out to it toothsome morsels of unexpected, astounding, incredible Luck. For how else can one explain the action at the Falkland Islands? There was sheer luck in every detail of it, luck piled upon luck. Sturdee with his two battle-cruisers raced through 7,000 miles of ocean, from Plymouth to Port Stanley, and not a whisper of his coming sped over the wireless to von Spee. Yet hundreds knew of Sturdee’s mission—even I knew before he had cleared the English Channel. During five weeks, from the Coronel battle until December 7th, the Falkland Islands were exposed almost helpless to a raid by von Spee’s victorious squadron. Yet he delayed his coming until December 8th—the day after the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ had arrived to gobble him up. As if these two miracles were not sufficient—a month of silence in those buzzing days of enemy agents and wireless telegraphy, and von Spee’s arrival off Port Stanley at the moment most dangerous for him and most convenient for us—the Fates worked for the Navy yet another. They gave to Sturdee upon December 8th, 1914, perfect weather, full visibility, and a quiet sea in a corner of ocean where rain and fog are the rule and clear weather almost a negligible exception. The Falkland Islands do not see half a dozen such days as that December 8th in the whole circuit of the year. Von Spee came and to Sturdee were granted a long southern summer day, perfect visibility, a limitless ocean of space, and a benign easy swell to swing the gunsights kindly upon their mark. It was a day that gunners pray for, sometimes dream of, but very rarely experience in battle.