“The essence o’ strategy bein’ forethought, the essence o’ tattics is surprise. Per’aps you didn’t know that? My forethought ’avin’ secured the initial advantage in attack, it remained for the old man to ladle out the surprise-packets. ’Eavens! What surprises! That night he dines with the wardroom, bein’ of the kind—I’ve told you as we were a ’appy ship?—that likes it, and the wardroom liked it too. This ain’t common in the service. They had up the new Madeira—awful undisciplined stuff which gives you a cordite mouth next morning. They told the mess-men to navigate towards the extreme an’ remote ’orizon, an’ they abrogated the sentry about fifteen paces out of earshot. Then they had in the Gunner, the Bo’sun, an’ the Carpenter, an’ stood them large round drinks. It all come out later—wardroom joints bein’ lower-deck hash, as the sayin’ is—that our Number One stuck to it that ’e couldn’t trust the ship for the job. The old man swore ’e could, ’avin’ commanded ’er over two years. He was right. There wasn’t a ship, I don’t care in what fleet, could come near the _Archimandrites_ when we give our mind to a thing. We held the cruiser big-gun records, the sailing-cutter (fancy-rig) championship, an’ the challenge-cup row round the fleet. We ’ad the best nigger-minstrels, the best football an’ cricket teams, an’ the best squee-jee band of anything that ever pushed in front of a brace o’ screws. An’ _yet_ our Number One mistrusted us! ’E said we’d be a floatin’ hell in a week, an’ it ’ud take the rest o’ the commission to stop our way. They was arguin’ it in the wardroom when the bridge reports a light three points off the port bow. We overtakes her, switches on our search-light, an’ she discloses herself as a collier o’ no mean reputation, makin’ about seven knots on ’er lawful occasions—to the Cape most like. “Then the owner—so we ’eard in good time—broke the boom, springin’ all mines together at close interval.