The men rose and looked out over the bay. There below them lay their sea homes, serene, invulnerable, and about them stretched the dull, dour, treeless landscape of their northern fastness. Their minds were as peaceful as the scene. As they looked a bright light from the compass platform of one of the battleships began to flicker through the sunshine—dash, dot, dot, dash. “There goes a signal,” said the Commander. “You are great at Morse, Pongo. Read what it says, my son.” The Lieutenant of Marines watched the flashes, and as he read grinned capaciously. “It is some wag with a signal lantern,” said he. “It reads: Question—Daddy,—what—did—you—do—in—the—Great—War?” “I wonder,” observed the Sub-Lieutenant, “what new answer the lower deck has found to that question. Before the battle their reply was: ‘I was kept doubling round the decks, sonny.’” “There goes the signal again,” said the Pongo; “and here comes the answer.” He read it out slowly as it flashed word after word: “‘=I laid the guns true, sonny.=’” “And a dashed good answer, too,” cried the Commander heartily. “That would make a grand fleet signal before a general action,” remarked the Gunnery Lieutenant. “I don’t care much for Nelson’s Trafalgar signal. It was too high-flown and sentimental for the lower deck. It was aimed at the history books, rather than at old tarry-breeks of the fleet a hundred years ago. No—there could not be a better signal than just ‘Lay the Guns True’—carry out your orders precisely, intelligently, faultlessly. What do you say, my Hun of a classical volunteer?” “It could not be bettered,” said Cæsar. “I will make a note of it,” said the Gunnery Lieutenant, “against the day, when as a future Jellicoe, I myself shall lead a new Grand Fleet into action.” CHAPTER I A BAND OF BROTHERS “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”—_King Henry V._ My boyhood was spent in Devon, the land of Drake and the home of the Elizabethan Navy. A deep passion for the Sea Service is in my blood, though, owing to family circumstances, I was not able to indulge my earliest ambition to become myself one of the band of brothers who serve under the White Ensign. My elder brother lived and died afloat. Two of my sons, happier than their father, are privileged to play their parts in the great ships of the Fleets. So that, though not in the Service, I am of it, by ties of blood and by ties of the earliest association. Whenever I have sought to penetrate its mysteries and to interpret them to my fellow countrymen, my motive has never been that of mere idle curiosity.