‘Even so, something must have been amiss in the boat, or I think she would have gone clear, but the next moment we saw the wake of the periscope under the steamer’s counter, and then it disappeared for good. The Norwegian stopped in answer to our frantic signals, and we went alongside and hailed the master. He said that his engineers reported that the propeller had struck something, so we took his name and port of registry and got the wireless going. ‘Two T.B.s arrived in a short time with divers and other gear, and the tramp was taken into Portland for examination; but nothing was proved, and she was not held to blame. In those days the submarine signals weren’t generally known as they are now. ‘We’d marked and buoyed the spot where we last saw “02’s” periscope, and the divers were just getting ready for a preliminary survey when a man shot out of the water and right up in the air. He fell back with a plop, and we had a boat out and the body on board inside three minutes. It was Allison, the “Sub” of the boat, and he just managed to tell us how things were and what had happened before he fainted. Then the divers got to work, and we were waiting anxiously for news when another body appeared. It was one of the stokers, and he was in a bad condition with shock, and half drowned. We waited and waited, but nobody else came up, and it was not for days afterwards that the boat was raised, and they were all dead by then----’ The gray-haired man sighed and broke off. ‘I knew Allison,’ I said, breaking the silence that followed. ‘It was he who told me practically all I know about “02.”’ ‘Did you?’ said the gray-haired man; ‘and I knew Belton: I knew him very well.’ ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, ‘I hope I haven’t----’ ‘Not at all,’ replied my informant. ‘But I think I knew him better than most people, because, you see, he was my son.’ * * * * * I went home that night and I thought about it. Of Allison the cheery, and Howell the Cockney, and of that lonely old Admiral who’d seen his son die. I thought about it and I wondered. And the result was that I asked myself this question: ‘Why do these men do this, and what keeps them doing it?’ And then the answer came, and the answer is, that in spite of modern machinery, and modern scepticism, and modern commercialism, and all the money grubbing and scoffing of the twentieth century, there is still, thank God, a touch of the loyalty and ideal of honour and patriotism that nerved our fathers of the middle ages. In the ordinary walks of life it is met with but rarely, or if it does exist, it is denied and held to scorn by those who would rather strike in war-time than do an extra hour’s work, and hold self continually in the fore-ground and never cast a thought to State or Country.