Two minutes later the anteroom had emptied, and these astonishing naval children were out on the half-deck dancing wildly but magnificently. Commanders and Lieutenants were mixed up with Subs., clerks and snotties from the gun room. Rank disappeared and nothing counted but the execution of the most complicated Russian measures. It was a strange scene which perhaps helps to reveal that combination of professional efficiency and childish irresponsibility which makes the Naval Service unlike any other community of men and boys in the world. CHAPTER VI THE MEDITERRANEAN: A FAILURE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES War is made up of successes and failures. We English do not forget our successes, but we have an incorrigible habit of wiping from our minds the recollection of our failures. Which is a very bad habit, for as every man realises, during his half-blind stumbles through life, failure is a most necessary schoolmistress. Yet, though civilians seem able to bring themselves to forget that in war we ever fail of success, soldiers and sailors do not forget, and are always seeking to make of their admitted mistakes, stepping stones upon which they may rise to ultimate victory. On land one may retrieve errors more readily than at sea, for movements are much slower and evil results declare themselves less rapidly. I am now compelled to write of a failure at sea very early in the war, which was not retrieved, and which had a trail of most disastrous consequence; and I hope to do it without imputing blame to anyone, no blame, that is, except for the lack of imaginative vision, which is one of our most conspicuous defects as a race.