THE PRICE OF ADMIRALTY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1518, 4 March 1916, Page 4

THE PRICE OF ADMIRALTY.

They entered the railway carriage just before we started, a small boy dressed in a . sailor suit with the name of a warship on his cap ribbon, and his nurse, who was carrying one of the illustrated papers. “Oh, Nurse, why am I going to see grandfather to-day, instead of going to school, and why did mother cry when she kissed me ?” said the youngster with a puzzled expression. “Hush, dear,” she replied, looking worried. “You are going to cheer him up, because he is an invalid and cannot walk about.” “Oh, I am so glad, because now he can show me where my father’s ship is, on his big round world, and we can stick pins with Union Jacks on them in the places where he’s been. Can’t we, Nurse?” he said. “Yes, Dearie,” and taking hold of his hand she said to him, “You must be a very good little boy to your grandfather today, because he wants a lot of cheering up now.” While she was saying this the newspaper she was carrying dropped unnoticed to the carriage flour, and the boy glancing down saw the front page, and cried excitedly : “Oh, look ! there’s my father’s ship, and why, there’s my father’s photo. Oh, let me look at it, please,” “No, darling, not now,” she said, hastily snatching the paper up and folding it, and those of us who had noticed it looked at the boy with an added and sympathising interest. “I'm going to be a sailor when I grow up, aren’t I, Nurse?” he said proudly, and defiantly looking round the carriage with boyish trust. “And I'm going to have a big ship like my father has.” “Oh, hush, dearie,” she, replied. “You must wait a long time yet, and" look after your mother, and be a little man” ; and there was a suspicion of tears in her eyes. The child sat* in silence for a time, evidently thinking deeply. Suddenly he spoke. “Why have you got a black dress on to day, Nurse ?” “Don’t ask me such questions; be a good little boy,” she said. “If you you speak like that to your grandfather you will worry him, and he won’t stand much worry now. You see, your father was your grandfather’s little boy, just like you were your father’s little boy.” The boy, after a minute’s hesitation and thought,

suddenly said: “Was! Nurse, why, isn’t he now ? and aren’t I my father’s little boy now ?” “Oh, darling, hush,” she said, putting her arms around him. But the youngster had stumbled upon the truth, aud at the back of his childish mind there was a knowledge that all was not as it should be, and we who knew and had read of the gallant fight of the little lad’s father’s and his loss with his brave ship’s company, thought of the hundreds of other little boys whose fathers would not come home. And we thought of the price we pay for the Ruling of the Seas. H.M.S. Talbot, Observer,