By way of ending this, my first literary voyage, I will carry out the comprehensive operation known as "mopping up." This will enable me to deal with a number of little matters that come into my mind and have not been included in their strictly proper places.

When I visited Port Arthur in 1912 in my destroyer Whiting I found the German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau there, and the admiral, von Spee, asked me to lunch with him. I little thought that in such a short time he and his staff and his beautiful ships would be at the bottom of the sea. His flag-lieutenant returned my call, and afterwards my warrant officer was heard to remark

"Why, he speaks better English than what I does!" It was, of course, common knowledge that the German naval officers all spoke perfect English.

This luncheon became very memorable to me, and the details remain vividly in my mind.

It is strange how much we are the creatures of circumstance in this world. It was literally by an accident that Admiral von Spee found himself

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commander-in-chief of the German ships in China at that time, and his death in the War, which was so soon to follow, may quite possibly not have occurred but for this appointment. His predecessor, whose name I forget at the moment, slipped on the gangway when going down to his boat, and he had to be taken to the hospital at Hong Kong, where his ship was then lying. Most unfortunately, when in hospital, he contracted some disease not in any way connected with his damaged ankle, and died suddenly. His successor, who had to be telegraphed for and sent out post haste, was von Spee.

I knew the flag-lieutenant quite well, and so did not feel entirely strange to the gathering. In addition to the admiral his chief of staff and secretary were present, and, of course, the flag-lieutenant.

The admiral was exceedingly kind to me, and spoke most enthusiastically of a shooting trip he had recently made up the Yangtse River, where he had been the guest of the British commander-in-chief for a couple of days over ground which that officer knew intimately from many shooting experiences.

I was very much struck by the appearance of the attendants during the meal. They were not officers' stewards or marines, but, unlike the British Navy,

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bluejackets. I liked their rig. They wore white jumpers and blue trousers, a rig never worn by our sailors, and looked particularly smart. The method by which officers' stewards were to a great extent eliminated in the German Navy has often given me cause for thought since - I say to a great extent, because I suppose a messman must have been carried in their ships. But they considered that they had no room for the steward class, and bluejackets, who took on this task in turn at stated intervals, were considered quite capable of waiting at table. I must confess that I could see no flaw in this arrangement. After all, a ship of war is intended for fighting, first and all the time, and if its efficiency can be increased by a system under which sailors do the waiting in the officers' messes I can see no reasonable objection to it. In the British Navy marines do the waiting in the wardrooms of ships where marines are carried, but a host of officers' stewards are carried as well, whose work might be done by bluejackets without increasing the complement of the ship.

We always looked upon the German naval officers as most nearly akin to our own. Their uniform was much the same, they looked much the same, they

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spoke English exceedingly well, and their outlook on life, generally speaking, was much the same as our own. They, of course, looked forward to the "Day" when they were going to rule the world ; but then, they had been brought up to this point of view, and I have not the slightest doubt that most of them felt that the world would be an infinitely better place for their domination.

What a tragedy that two such navies should have to fight one another! And that the fight should have to be one which must inevitably end in the surrender of one of the fleets. And what a surrender! A miserable squadron of dirty and mutinous ships surrounded by the flower of the proud and victorious British Navy and a squadron of American and French ships to add to the already overpowering majesty of the Grand Fleet! Was the arrangement for this surrender the most dignified one that could have been evolved ? Is it possible that the power of the Press was too much for the more level heads of the men at the helm ?

As an alternative, I can see, as in a dream, a British light cruiser being sent out to meet the surrendering German Fleet. She is alone, but is in constant wireless communication with the British

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Fleet, which is hovering in the vicinity, in touch but not in sight, ready to pounce instantly in case of any treachery. On meeting the German Fleet the British cruiser turns sixteen points and makes the international signal "FOLLOW ME." The course is for Scapa Flow, the base and earthly hell of the Grand Fleet during four years of the War; and having led the enemy fleet into its inhospitable anchorage, the light cruiser makes the signal " ANCHOR."

There is nothing more to be said ; nothing more to be done.

When I look once more at the photograph of Admiral Beatty surveying the German Fleet from his bridge on first sighting it, on surrender, his face seems to me to be very sad.

The remarkable state of discipline in the German Navy was well known to the British naval officer. and although looking upon it with somewhat envious eyes, I think we all secretly felt that it was overdone.

In a German man-of-war the human side of the bluejacket was not considered at all. He seemed to do every mortal thing during the day and night to the "pipe." He never appeared to move without taking the correct step to the front or rear with the correct foot and to the correct time.

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Have you ever watched a Guardsman sentry on duty outside Buckingham Palace ? You will have noticed that at the end of every "beat" he takes the correct steps to turn round, as laid down in the drill-book. It is an unnatural movement, and yet he has grown so accustomed to doing it on duty that it becomes second nature to him. This is as it should be, but off duty he turns round as he likes.

I suppose there were leisure moments when the German bluejacket could do as he liked, but I must confess that I never came across him in such circumstances - even when ashore he seemed to march.

On one occasion at Grenada, an island in the West Indies, the ship I was in, H.M.S. Tribune, was moored with her stern to the shore, and alongside her, nearly touching, was a German cruiser of about the same size.

We remained thus for a week, and a very trying week it was for us too ! Although we looked upon our ship as a smart craft, we appeared to be little short of pirates when compared with the German. Not that we were not as clean as she was : it was the infernal state of her discipline that upset us. Our men rose nobly to the occasion, and did their best to make every movement conform to the

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drill-book ; but it was no good, and in the end they had to confess that they were beaten.

Here are a few examples. The pipe would go, "Spread awnings." This was done in both ships at the same time in the morning. Very well. The British bluejackets would double smartly aft, jump up on to the nettings, and spread the awnings ; they would then double smartly forward again and relight their pipes.

Not so the Germans. This was not their idea of discipline by a long way. They would rush aft and fall in, and would remain in a state of complete inanimation, like so many stiff upright corpses, until a chief petty officer gave a grunt. They would then, as one man, spring smartly and lightly on to the nettings, and immediately resume the corpse-like attitude. Another pause, and then another grunt from the chief petty officer. Now they became almost human, and actually used their hands and spread the awnings; but immediately this was

done they again ceased to live. Another grunt, and the whole cemetery would leap lightly to the deck, backwards, and become corpses once more.

Several further grunts, and they would turn forward again and march off, presumably to become inanimate

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carcases again until called upon for more examples of resuscitation.

In gun-drill if one of our men had, in the course of bringing the gun into action, to take a step diagonally to the rear, he would take a step diagonally to the rear, and there would be an end of it. But this was far too easy for the German ; besides, there is no such step in the drill-book. No, he took one step to the rear and then one step to the side. But we had to acknowledge that sometimes there was sense in it, for at exactly eleven-thirty every morning a German sailor would appear on the quarter-deck before the assembled officers, with a trayful of cocktails.

In the German Navy everybody saluted everybody. The men saluted the petty officers, the sub saluted the lieutenant, who in turn saluted the lieutenant-commander, and so on. I remember that when I lunched on board the Scharnhorst every officer and man in sight saluted the captain when he came on deck.

Discipline is imperative in any armed force, but it can be overdone, and then, in extreme crises, the reaction comes. It is quite possible that this was the cause of the mutiny in the German Fleet towards the end of the War, which led to the break-up of the whole system.

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As a contrast I have served in a ship where a very excellent theatrical party, consisting of officers and men, had been formed. During one of the performances the commander had to put his arm affectionately round the shoulders of an ordinary seaman and say: "Never mind, old chap, you've had your fun, and now you've got to pay for it!" A large number of guests from other ships were present, and they were delighted with the whole thing. But few of them knew that that ordinary seaman, only the night before, had been punished with ten days' " Ten A " by the commander for breaking his leave.

The German officers' attitude towards us during the War was very different from our attitude towards them. It must have surprised them very much when our men in the trenches made their prisoners sing the "Hymn of Hate" to them, and a greater surprise still it must have been when from their trenches they heard the same hymn being softly wafted across from ours.

A friend of mine, who at one time commanded one of our gunboats on the Canton River in China, told me that during his commission he had made great friends with the captain of the German gunboat. On leaving, shortly before the War, they even

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corresponded with one another. During the first year of the War my friend found himself at Athens - Greece was neutral at that time - and one evening, to his surprise and delight, he came across his old friend of the German gunboat. Walking up to him with extended hand, he said: "Well, I am pleased to see you! " The German officer put his hand behind his back and said: " I am your enemy! " and walked away. Strictly speaking, this was the correct attitude to take, but the British officer cannot look upon war in the same way. There is no Personal hatred about it with him. When I saw all those fellows swimming about in the water after I had sunk their submarine I just had to haul them on board and treat them decently when I had done so. Some cut-throats ashore asked me why I had not just brought a sample or two in and left the rest to drown. Well, the answer is, it can't be done.

When we are up against a nation it is the nation we are up against and not the individual. We do all we can to "down" that nation's house, and we usually succeed. But when all is over the individuals remain our friends, just as the Germans, individually, are our friends now - at any rate, that is my own way of looking at the matter.

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I was "duty destroyer" when the battleship Vanguard was blown up at Scapa Flow. "Duty destroyers" had to be ready to "slip and proceed" at a moment's notice, and neither officers nor men went to bed.

It was about eleven-thirty at night that the explosion occurred, and I was reading a book in the wardroom at the time. We were quite used to the noise of gun-fire in the Flow at night, for ships of the fleet carried out their night firing there ; but this was always with light guns, owing to the restricted size of this land-locked harbour.

The noise I heard took me up on deck at once. It was a double explosion, with perhaps half a second between the two detonations, and it sounded to me as if a ship was firing 12-inch guns in the Flow.

What met my eyes was a thick black cloud which seemed to hang over the fleet. I knew that something was wrong, and got under way at once. It was five minutes before we reached the scene of what we now knew to be a disaster, and we found ourselves in company with every picket-boat in the fleet searching for bodies. But there was nothing alive to be seen.

Actually two men were saved from the wreck of the Vanguard ; one was a stoker petty officer

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who was known to have been in his hammock two decks below, and the other was, I believe, the marine sentry on the forecastle.

Very fortunately for some of the officers another ship was giving an entertainment that night, and a large number of the wardroom and gunroom officers were away from their own ship attending it. These were the only officers in the ship who remained alive after the explosion.

At the court-martial the only survivor who could be brought up to give evidence was the stoker petty officer, the marine being too ill to attend or tell anything.

The board naturally wanted to try and find out what had caused the explosion ; the stoker petty officer, on the other hand, was far too much interested in his own experience to talk of anything but that.

To the question: "What happened when the explosion took place ? " he answered : " Well, sir, I was asleep in me 'ammick on the stokers' mess-deck (which was two decks down), an' the next thing I knows is that I was gettin' a bird's-eye view of the fleet. And at that time the mess-deck clock was up there opposite me, an' I noticed the time. It was 'alf-past eleven." And this was about all the information they could get out of him.

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The explanation was this : The first explosion woke the man partially up, and he caught sight of the clock which was opposite him on the mess-deck; the next explosion was at his end of the ship, and having opened the decks above him, lifted him up a matter of a hundred feet or so, and then deposited him in the sea, unhurt.

This was not the only case of a man being blown through several decks without injury. There was an instance when the battleship Bulwark blew up in Sheerness Harbour. The human body can be flung about in the most amazing manner at times and yet not be hurt. One night the Castor, flagship of the commodore commanding the destroyer flotillas, got a shell on her bridge which killed six signalmen out of seven who were standing there. The explosion burst a large hole in the steel deck, and the seventh signalman actually fell through it and picked himself up unhurt.

These occurrences throw some light on a statement by a doctor which I saw in the papers the other day. He said that, at a rough estimate, the man who is driving his motor-car at ninety miles an hour and has an accident gets off scot free as a matter of course, the man driving at sixty miles an

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hour is hurt once in three times, and the man driving at forty miles is usually killed !

There remain two periods of service on which I have not touched ; these are the period between taking over command of the destroyer Vigilant and joining the Whiting in China, and that between the end of the War and my paying off of my last command, the old Kinsha. There was also a very brief period between the end of " China days" and the War, but as I can recall nothing of the least interest during this period I need not refer to it again.

As I have said, it was a proud moment when I walked on board my first destroyer command for the first time. I had completed my big ship time, and I felt fairly certain of remaining in destroyers for some years. As a matter of fact, I was not out of command of a ship until I finally retired fourteen years later.

The strictest economy was in force in the Navy in those days, and the annual allowance of coal for the flotilla was very limited. As a consequence, only a very short period during the year could be spent at sea. My principal recollection of those days was one of extreme boredom.

Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly was then in command of the War College, and he used to allow us, the

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commanding officers, to play the war game there twice a week. This really saved my life. Some members of the staff would be detailed to remain behind to take charge after the regular course had packed up for the day, and then we would have at one another in the most blood-thirsty and unorthodox methods.

The admiral, who would always be present on such occasions, once told me that he enjoyed these battles more than any of those fought by the various officers undergoing the war course.

The war game is played on a huge raised platform occupying almost the entire space of a large room. This platform is divided into small squares, and every move of the game is done to time and scale. Thus, the actual conditions of sea warfare are represented. It is a most exciting game. As a rule the two fleets to do battle with one another are formed up at either end of the platform under the orders of their commanders-in-chief - that is, you and your opponent. Screens are put up between the two fleets and a rough indication of the other fleet's position is given to each commander-in-chief. Then the word to advance is given and the time taken. The ships in your fleet and that of your opponent are models of ships actually in existence at the

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time, foreign as well as British. Their speeds are known, and they are moved, square by square, according to the speed they are steaming.

Presently the screens are lifted : the two fleets are in sight. It immediately becomes obvious to you that you must get your fleet into such and such a formation and steam at full speed in a direction to bring him to action in a manner advantageous to you, and you are impatient to get on with it. But it is a very slow business, and yet no slower than under the most favourable circumstances in reality. Signals have to be given out to the flag-lieutenant, who has to order them to be hoisted, every ship in the fleet must repeat the signal, flag for flag, and not until this has been done and the signal in the flagship hauled down can the order be obeyed. With a fleet of, say, sixteen battleships, it is surprising how long it takes to get a signal repeated all down the line, even with the smartest signalmen on duty. When at last the opposing fleets are within gun-range the umpire, at certain intervals, measures the volume and weight of the broadsides through the arc on which the guns in action are able to bear. Each ship has so many lives, and the lives are ticked off, one by one, until the ship is declared to have sunk.

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I have fought in some battles where all the ships except one, of each fleet have been sunk. Those two remaining ships have then opened up out of gun-range and chased each other round the table, each trying to get into a more favourable position than the other until the chief umpire has decided that it is time to go to bed, and has declared the battle a draw.

These war games and the brief periods we were able to go to sea were oases in a desert of stifling inactivity Those times have gone for ever and a good thing too,

From the Vigilant I went to the Racehorse, and from the Racehorse to the Whiting in China. Three years in China and a brief interval in destroyers at home filled up the period before the commencement of the War. From the end of the War to the date of my retirement was a matter of only three and a half years, and I will touch upon those times.

We did not remain long at Rathmullen, our base in Northern Ireland, after the armistice, and the flotilla, with the author in his destroyer Marne; proceeded to their home ports. Mine happened to be Devonport. This was the first time I had been south of Liverpool, as far as England was concerned, since going north in November, 1914, and it was very pleasant to see the old western port again.

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But a sad and somewhat humiliating time was before us ; no less sad because of its obvious necessity. We were ordered to give each watch so much leave and then pay off into a special reserve. When for the last time I addressed my shipmates, many of whom had been with me for the entire period of the War, it was with difficulty that I could keep a tear out of my eye. These men had been with me through so many trials and some triumphs; I had trusted them and they had trusted me. We had all borne the discomforts and general beastliness of a destroyer almost continuously at sea together ; and now the end had come, and we were going our several ways, in all probability never to meet again.

The next day I found myself alone in the ship, whose normal complement was somewhere about a hundred officers and men, with a crew of five ! I also found that I was in command of a "group" of destroyers, six in number, each with a similar crew, and no officers save the engineers. This was too much, and I applied to go abroad, a request the Admiralty very kindly granted by appointing me to the gunboat Kinsha, to be made the flagship of the Yangtse flotilla under a commodore second class.

Now I had known the Kinsha of old in the China

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days, when I was working on the Yangtse in the Whiting during the revolution, and I remembered her as about the most comfortable vessel, as far as accommodation went, I had ever been on board. So it was with some pleasure that I read this appointment and made my preparations to return once more to China.

It was in April, 1919, that I took over the Kinsha at Shanghai, and immediately got busy in altering her accommodation to suit a commodore and his staff. As a matter of fact, the commodore only remained for one year and was then relieved by a rear-admiral - Admiral Borrett - with whom I remained until my full two years in the ship had expired.

This was the first time that a gunboat had been commissioned as flagship of the river. Up to the War one of the cruisers on the China Station was always stationed at Shanghai as senior officer of the river and had run the gunboats from there. This was a new departure, and we were very busy for some time getting the system under way and in running order. Also, since I had never been on the staff before, it came as a very agreeable novelty to me.

The flotilla consisted of six" Insect "class gunboats-built during the War and carrying 6-inch

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guns - and two smaller gunboats on the lower river, and two older gunboats on the upper river. These latter were built specially to navigate the gorges which divide the river roughly in two.

I believe there can be no river in the world so interesting as the Yangtse, which is, with its 3,000 miles, the third longest river in the world. At Hankow, 600 miles from its mouth, it is navigable during the season by the largest ships and is over one mile in width. It can actually be navigated by gunboats and steamers specially built for steaming up the gorges for a distance of 1,600 miles.

Here, at Suifu, the White Ensign is a common sight, and the gunboat flying it is actually nearer Calcutta than she is to her base at Shanghai.

As I have said, these gorges divide the river into roughly two parts. They commence at Ichang, 1,000 miles from the entrance, and continue at intervals to Chungking, some 400 miles further up. The scenery in this part of the world is simply gorgeous. The country is mountainous and the banks are often steep, towering above one like the sides of a house. In the gorges themselves the current is too rapid for any vessel afloat to stem, and here the skill of the native pilot becomes

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apparent. These men are born to the job, and spend their lives on this part of the river.

It is not so much the dodging of the strongest currents by working up one bank as far as possible and then shooting across and making the other bank and edging up a little more before repeating the programme, as the local knowledge that is required to know where the ship will have enough water in the present state of the tide. This difficulty can be appreciated when it is realised that the greatest difference between high and low water during a year at Chungking is no less than 120 feet, and a rise or fall of forty feet during the night is no uncommon thing.

During the two years I was on this station the navigation of the gorges in one of the gunboats to which we had shifted the admiral's flag will be remembered by me when all else has been forgotten.

Once above these gorges one is in China proper. Below, the Chinaman is influenced by Western civilisation ; but above, his civilisation has hardly been scratched by the West. The reason of this is that Szecheun, the province through which the river flows, is cut off from the world by impassable mountains, and the only connection with the West can be said to be the gorges. Until comparatively

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recent years these gorges could only be navigated by Chinese vessels called quodzas, a kind of junk which had to be laboriously towed up by man-power, and which took months to complete the voyage. Now, specially constructed steamers are able to make regular trips to Chungking. But these are necessarily small and can carry but a light cargo and a few passengers ; and when it is realised that Szechuen is about the same size as Germany, it will be seen that the Chinaman in those parts is not much influenced by foreign affairs.

The captain of one of the upper river gunboats is a commander and acts as senior naval officer. If a selection of his reports made to the Admiralty during the last twenty years, say, were published, I feel confident that they would make as exciting and interesting reading as anybody could wish to have.

The impression I received of these people of Szechuen was that they had reached the Elizabethan stage and then stopped. As the Chinese nation was civilised a thousand years before Christ, this impression is all the more remarkable. Their customs were Chinese customs ; they wore Chinese clothes and not the mongrel garb so commonly seen in other parts of the country ; the only coin used

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was the "cash" : ten cash to the cent and 100 cents to the dollar. As a dollar is worth about 2s. 4d., it can be understood why the cash has a, hole bored in it and why one's "boy" always accompanies one on shopping expeditions with a few thousand of these units threaded on string.

The gunboats have a little dockyard at Chungking, which boasts a small repair shop, and two bungalows up the hill for the officers and men to retreat to for a spell in the very hot weather. In times of trouble the gunboats on the upper river are entirely cut off from civilisation. A mere handful of men amidst teeming millions of Chinese, they keep the flag flying, knowing full well that they can expect no succour if they get into trouble. Get out a map of Asia, trace the Yangtse River up to Ichang ; here the gorges begin; carry on until you get to Chungking, and place your thumb over the name Chungking. You can say to yourself that the area covered by your thumb contains at least two British gunboats. And the next time you read of wars in China give them a thought.

As a matter of fact, the Kinsha was originally a merchant steamer built to navigate these same gorges. Her name was the Pioneer, and, piloted by Captain Plant - father of the gorges - she made the

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trip as early as June, 1900. But she was not altogether satisfactory for the work, and we took her over in 1900 and commissioned her as a gunboat for duty on the lower river. The wisdom for this action was proved by the total loss of another vessel in the gorges, which was built for the Germans and was very similar in all details to the Kinsha. The word Kinsha means "Golden Sand," and is the name of the river which is supposed to be the source of the Yangtse.

As we had an office ashore at Shanghai, our headquarters, we of necessity spent most of our time on the lower river, where we could keep in touch with the flotilla. I have nothing to say in praise of the lower river except that an all-seeing Deity had obviously arranged winds and currents to suit the Chinaman and his junk. Observe, to within a few miles of the entrance the tide always flows down the river. It is naturally strongest in the middle and weakest at the sides. But the wind is nearly always up the river. This, in nine days out of ten, is a fact. Thus the Chinaman can sail up the river with a wind, hugging the banks, and drift down the river, keeping in mid-stream.

When, in 1921, it was decided to pay off the Kinsha and alter the Bee for carrying the admiral

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and staff, the question arose which gun was to be taken out in order that accommodation could be built in its place. And, because of this prevailing wind, it was decided to build the accommodation aft.

It was in April, 1921, that I stepped over the side of the old ship for the last time, and I have never left a ship with more regret. For twenty-one years she had been looked upon as one of the "plum" appointments of the Navy, and a dozen commanding officers had lost their hearts to her during that period, even as I had. Her appearance, with her large paddle-boxes sticking out on either side, always reminded me of the pictures of the old ladies in the crinoline days ; and, like them, she was comfortable and motherly, and yet inclined to be fractious if not treated with all respect due to her age and standing on the river.

If, for instance, she were forced at too high a speed against a head sea she would drop a couple of paddle-floats off as soon as look at you, and it was a most unpleasant business putting new ones on, a laborious task in which every man in the ship seemed to be involved. I found this out in my first voyage in her, and never again did I try her patience unduly.

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It was a sad day when I left her, having sold her to a Chinaman "all standing." I left the station almost immediately and never saw her again, but an officer in the Bee, a year later, wrote and told me that, steaming up the river one day, the Kinsha, under her Chinese command, saw the new flagship at her old buoy off the bund.

This was too much for the old ship! She took charge of matters, as of old, and charged down on the upstart. They collided, and became so thoroughly entangled that it took about an hour to clear them.

Several famous officers commanded the Kinsha, including Captain Lyne, who began his naval career as a boy in a training establishment and ended it in command of a similar institution. This officer was in the Kinsha longer than any other, and became known as the father of the river.

This was my last appointment, and when I stepped ashore from the Kinsha I can be said to have stepped out of the Navy. My health had been indifferent of late, and when the new scheme of retirement was published in 1922 I applied to be allowed to accept its conditions.

And so I will step out of the pages of this book.

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