The Navy hates advertisement and scorns above all things in heaven or upon earth the indiscriminating praise of well-meaning civilians. I sadly realise that it may scorn me and this book of mine. But I will do my best to make amends. I will promise that never once in describing their deeds will I refer to Navy men as “heroes.” I will not, where I can possibly avoid doing so, mention the name of anyone. I will do my utmost at all times to write of them as men and not as “b—— angels.” I will, at the peril of some inconsistency, declare my conviction that naval officers haven’t any souls, that they are in the Service because they love it, and not because they care two pins for their country, that they are rather pleased than otherwise when rotten civilians at home get a bad fright from a raid. I will declare that they catch and sink German submarines by all manner of cunning devices, from the sheer zest of sport, and not because they would raise a finger to save the lives of silly passengers in luxurious ocean liners. I will do anything to turn their scorn away from me except to withdraw one word which I have written upon the Soul of the Navy. For upon this subject they would, I believe, write as I do if the gods had given to them leisure for philosophical analysis—which they are much too busy to bother about—and the knack of verbally expressing their thoughts. When I read a naval despatch I always groan over it as an awful throwing away of the most splendid opportunities. I always long to have been in the place of the writer, to have seen what he saw, to know what he knew, and to tell the world in living phrase what tremendous deeds were really done. Naval despatches are the baldest of documents, cold, formal, technical, most forbiddingly uninspiring. Whenever I ask naval officers why they do not put into despatches the vivid details which sometimes find their way into private letters they glare at me, and even their beautiful courtesy can scarcely keep back the sniff of contempt. “Despatches,” say they, “are written for the information of the Admiralty.” That is a complete answer under the Naval Code. The despatches, which make one groan, are written for the information of the Admiralty, not to thrill poor creatures such as you and me. A naval officer cares only for his record at the Admiralty and for his reputation among those of his own craft. If a newspaper calls Lieutenant A—— B—— a hero, and writes enthusiastically of his valour, he shudders as would a modest woman if publicly praised for her chastity. Valour goes with the Service, it is a part of the Soul of the Navy. It is taken for granted and is not to be talked or written about. And so with those other qualities that spring from the traditions of the Navy—the chivalry which risks British lives to save those of drowning enemies, the tenderness which binds up their wounds, the honours paid to their dead. All these things, which the