As I start off now, my only real big regret is that through circumstances so much of my responsibility has been taken by others--you, my brother, and your father. I don't know that I am really to blame. At least, I am very sure that never in all my life did I intentionally try to shift any load of mine onto another. But in any case, it makes me all the more glad that I am where I am, going where I am to go--to have my chance, in other words. I once said in jest that all naval officers ought really to get killed, to justify their existence. I don't exactly advocate that extreme. But I shall all my life be happier for having at least taken my chance. It will increase my self-respect, which in turn increases my usefulness in life. So can you get my point of view, and be glad with me? [Sidenote: The best things of life.] Now I am to a great extent a fatalist, though I hope it really is something higher than that. Call it what you will, I have always believed that if we go ahead and do our duty, counting not the cost, then the outcome will be in the hands of a power way beyond our own. But if it be fated that I don't come back, let no one ever say, "Poor _R----_." I have had all the best things of life given me in full measure--the happiest childhood and boyhood, health, the love of family and friends, the profession I love, marriage to the girl I wanted, and my son. If I go now, it will be as one who quits the game while the blue chips are all in his own pile. GENERAL POST OFFICE, LONDON MAY 19. [Sidenote: Rescuing a sailor.] On the trip over, we were steaming behind the _R----_, when all at once she steered out and backed, amid much running around on board. At first we thought she saw a submarine and stood by our guns. Then we saw she had a man overboard. We immediately dropped our lifeboat, and I went in charge for the fun of it. Beat the _R----'s_ boat to him. He had no life-preserver, but the wool-lined jacket he wore kept him high out of water, and he was floating around as comfortably as you please, barring the fact that his fall had knocked him unconscious. So we not only took him back to his ship, but picked up the _R----'s_ boat-hook, which the clumsy lubbers had dropped--and kept it as a reward for our trouble. [Sidenote: Very little known about the U-boat situation.]