I must not close this chapter without a word about the well-appointed hospital ships which ply backwards and forwards between the French and British coasts, each with its doctors, nurses, and chaplains on board, bearing a freight of suffering humanity, such as our coasts have never seen before. Everything in order, everything in the way of comfort and ease provided. It was a dastardly act to aim a German torpedo against the _Asturias_. Fortunately the attempt failed, but what profit would it have been if this life-giving ship had been sunk? Enough surely has been done to take life. The object of such ships as these--ships which cannot be mistaken for any others--is to woo back to life, until their suffering humanity can be tenderly placed in the care of loving hands and hearts at home. Here we are waiting for them, and here we have a right to expect them, that, nursed back to health in the hospitals of our land, they may, by and by, greet wife, and mother, and child, and sweetheart in their own homes once more. But oh the cruel work of war! The legacy of broken bodies and broken hearts! We look on, and look up to the City of God even now coming down from God out of heaven. _Sursum corda!_ The hour of redemption draweth nigh. CHAPTER IX WITH THE GRAND FLEET Always "Ready, Aye Ready"--The Deciding Factor--One Hundred and Fifty Chaplains--On the "Bulwark"--"The Church Pennant" Postponed--Sunday on a Battleship--The Sailor and the Thought of Death--Stories from the Fleet--From a Torpedo-boat--The Shore Chaplain's Opportunity--Christian Bravery--"Save Yourself; I'll let go." Everybody is asking, Where is the Grand Fleet? And that is just what the Germans would like to know. It has a marvellous facility for appearing and disappearing. Occasionally we receive letters bearing the address, "In the North Sea or elsewhere," and sometimes we think it is more elsewhere than there. No postmark gives its location away, no newspaper paragraph lets us into the secret. And then suddenly it appears: Out of the everywhere into the here, and the Germans find to their dismay a part of it off the Dogger Bank, and the sleepy Turk wakes up to find another part in the Dardanelles. It is like one of the mysterious powers of nature--unseen, but ever exercising a powerful influence. Its existence is always felt--felt by our foes with ever-increasing pressure, and felt by us with influences always beneficial. It sleeps not and rests not. It is always "ready, aye ready." From Admiral Sir John Jellicoe to the grimiest stoker, it is one in purpose and in action. And because it is _there_, we sleep well in our beds at night, and there are few of us, as we lie down to rest, but breathe a prayer for those who seem never to rest-- "God bless our sons upon the sea."