A FLEET IN BEING
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1914
First Edition, December 1898.
Reprinted, December 1898; January, February, May, and October1899, 1910, 1914.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
That sail upon the seas,
To fight the Wars and keep the Laws,
And live on yellow peas’
Some thirty of her Majesty’s men-of-war were involved in this matter; say adozen battleships of the most recent, and seventeen or eighteen cruisers; butmy concern was limited to one of a new type commanded by an old friend. I hadsome dim knowledge of the interior of a warship, but none of the new world intowhich I stepped from a Portsmouth wherry one wonderful summer evening in’97.
With the exception of the Captain, the Chief Engineer, and maybe a few pettyofficers, nobody was more than twenty-eight years old. They ranged in theward-room from this resourceful age to twenty-six or seven clear-cut,clean-shaved young faces with all manner of varied experience behind them. Whenone comes to think, it is only just that a light 20-knot cruiser should behandled, under guidance of an older head, by affable young gentlemen prepared,even sinfully delighted, to take chances not set down in books. She was new,they were new, the Admiral was new, and we were all off to the Manœuvrestogether—thirty keels next day threading their way in and out between a hundredand twenty moored vessels not so fortunate. We opened the ball, for the benefitof some foreign warships, with a piece of rather pretty steering. A consort wascoming up a waterlane, between two lines of shipping, just behind us; and wenipped in immediately ahead of her, precisely as a hansom turning out of BondStreet nips in in front of a City ’bus. Distance on water is deceptive, andwhen I vowed that at one crisis I could have spat on the wicked ram of our nextastern, pointed straight at our naked turning side, the ward-room laughed.
‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ said a gentleman of twenty-two. ‘Wait till we have tokeep station to-night. It’s my middle watch.’
‘Close water-tight doors, then,’ said a Sub-Lieutenant. ‘I say’ (this to thepassenger) ‘if you find a second-class cruiser’s ram in the small of your backat midnight don’t be alarmed.’
We were then strung out in a six-mile line, thirty ships, all headingWestwards. As soon as we found room the Flagship began to signal, and therefollowed a most fascinating game of general post. When I came to know oursignalmen on the human side I appreciated it even more. The Admiral wreathedhimself with flags, strings of them; the signalman on our high little, narrowlittle bridge, telescope jammed to his eye, rea