Before the Battle.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 203, 25 August 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

Before the Battle.

A VISIT TO THE GRAND FLEEI.

By HAROLD BEGBIE.

On Saturday, May 27, I was drinking tea on board the Invincible. There was an air of festivity in the company. We civilians might DC the dullest dogs on earth, but at least we brought change into the monotonous vigil of the Grand Flaet. The brown faces of our seahosts were wreathed in smiles. There was a large sea picture covering an entire corner of one of the walls from ceiling to floor. I made some jesting remark about this picture, cup in hand, to a young lieutenant-com-mander. "As a matter of fact," no said, "it was painted by a relation of yours who was on this ship, Hope Begbie." At that moment a. little whitefaced midshipman, very shy and charming, approached us and introduced himself to me as my cousin, Douglas Birch. I learned that he had fought in both the actions of the Invincible. " How did he behave?" I asked the lieutenantcommander. "As a matter of fact," replied the lieutenand-commander, " he was in my turret, the very turret I showed vou just now." "And he behaved splendidly?" The lieutenantcommander smiled and laughed. "He behaved, as a matter of fact, like ;>. hero." And so saying, he reached over the table, got hold of a plate of jamcake, offered it to the midshipman, and said, "He-e, Birch, tuck into this." And the little boy, smling and shy. blushed as lie looked about for the biggest slice. That child is now dead. He was under sixteen. At the age of fourteen he had fought in a great battle. Twice in his life he had endured the tremendous strain of a tempestuous fight at sea; and now, in such a grave as passes imagination for grandeur and immensity— a grave of colossal steel walls, with twisted steel masts, immense guns, and shattered bridges for roofthat boy lies in the depths and silence of the sea. The death of this child, who waved so affecVonately to me as our destroyer left the Invincible that afternoon brought home to my mind more than'anything else in the tremendous battle four days afterwards the simple humanity wich lies behind these awful encounters of force. It is terrible that children of this age should die for us It is awful to reflect that such boys as these, whose eyes smile at the sight of unlimited jam-cake, should have to endure the hell of a sea battle. On my table 's a fragment of crossed-ruled paper torn from his grubby notebook. He wrote an address for me on one sile; on the other is an abstruse mathematical calculation. They are mathematicians, these midshipmen, they know all there is to know about a modern battleship, and they are living muscles in Great Britain's right arm, an actual part in the strength and cunning of our Royal Navy. Behind their little !>odies shelter the commercial greatness and the domestic happiness of the British Commonwealth. . ' . Something e'-se lived again in my thoughts when I read of the battle of Horn Reef. It was the memory or photographs which I had seen in the cabins of the Cruiser Squadron and the Grand Fleet. On all the ships I visited, and in every cabin I went into, there were photographs of women. «o other photographs of any kind. Alwavs thev were photographs of women. Here it" was the photograph of a man's wife, here the photograph of a man's sister, and here the photograph of a boy's mother. And all these women's eyes lookel at mc when I entered the cabins, as if they woull explain to me that they were there a' symbols of- everything for which the Royal Navy will one day fight its last area* battle with the Germans. . I had been shown the mechanism ot these big ships, but the humanity of the cabins .impressed me more than anything else, I loved to hear a splendid vouth, clean-cut and full of power, say to me, "That's my mother"; or to hear a man say, picking up the photograph of a charming girl, "That is my daughter." Every day a steamer carres the mails to the Grand Fleet, and the weight of those letters is every day between 15 and 20 tons. I heard this before I saw the photographs, and 't made the photographs more living and more significant. How much more this meant than the ingenious contrivances of the ships! It meant the son! and spirit of the Royal Navy. It meant the goodness and wholesomeness and simple human affection of our heroic men. It meant that War one day will be concuiered by Love. ' You must not th:nk that I exaggetate The rather florid descriptions ot the' (Jland Fleet which have appeared in print are misleading. Only the naval expert can see in the spectacle of those peacefully moored vessels the overwhelming force of Britain's sea-power. To the honest layman, I feel pretty confident, there can be only a teeling of slight disappointment in the spectacle The ships do not look enormously big. and their number :s not very great It is not as if you see the entire Fleet steaming by, as I have seen it in reviews; you see it piecemeal, you see.it at anchor, and you see it apparently idle. , , The truth is that the tremendous power of the Grand Fleet is a matter of inches. It has nothing to do with great numbers, or with huge hulk, or trth lightning speed. Instead of counting v he ships, measuring the-ir length, and inquiring about their horse-power, von must take a two-toot rule to the '<r U n« It is there, in the d ameter of those guns, that the shattering power of the Grand Fleet resides. The German Navv is locked in by these same inches. They ore the might, majesty power, and dominion of the Grand Fleet Thev are the destruction held in the hand of Admiral Jellicoe. They are the reason why the sea js clear and Germany )s counting her eggs and soaptablets. ' Inches, a few inches, in r fled steel! . ■ There was one dramatic moment ,n our visit, and that was when our destroyer bore us alongside tlifl Iron Duke. . . , „ , n 1' was like some famous picture lli< s„n. breaking through the clouds flooded the primrose rpiartor-dock ot tins historc ship vith golden light. A crowd of officers was gathered there, brilliant Wth pold braid, ribbons. and niaueliettcw. A fcw hlucjackcts m white were moving about at the back. A regular Bill Sifcw »"»<l°K lurched into skidow, nitd sat .nibbing its kick against steel, a pink tonirue lolling from its mouth. There wn-; •> '"'it

movement among the officers. A little man in thair midst, less brilliant than the rest, walked jerkily away, put his telescope to his eye, looked at a ship in the distance, and then, closing Ms telescope, walked jerkily back to the group and took stock of us. It was Jellicoe. We went to his cabin. Surrounded by his glittering staff, this little man. England's Nelson, addressed us tor some ten minutes. With his hands behind him, his telescope under his arm, his arched eyebrows high up in his forehead, he rocked from heel to toe, and spoke of his pleasure in welcoming tne British Press to the Grand Fleet. He is not an orator, but he has a singularly pleasant voice, and as he spoke the blindest of us could a?e the man's power and the exceeding brightness of his intelligence. Every now and then he smiled like a schoolboy, and looked from right to left as if seeking sympathy from the crowd of tall men confronting him. I spoke to many men on that visit, including the gallant Hood, and in every case I was struck by their gentleness', their modesty, tha'r complete freedom from anything small and trifling in the way of swagger or vanit/ I think their gentleness struck me more than anything else. They were splendid to look at, so strong, so healthy, so cheerful, and so confident; and yet in every case there was this wonderful and most beautiful quality of extreme gentleness. Except among our officers in the Himalayas, I have not met greater gentlemen. And this is our protection from the power and enmity of Prussia —the inches of the guns and the spirit of our sailors. In the one case it is a matter of measurement, in the other a matte" of incalculable power. There is some-

thing in the British seaman, from ad miral to bluejacket, which is so qtuetl>' magnificent, so modestly invincible, and so unconsciously noble that we can onlv bow before it with admiration and gratitude. The guns of Germany may sink some of our ships, but the spirit of the Fleet is indestructible. It is a spirit of such inexpressible importance to our freedom and our honour and our existence that we must allow nothing on earth to interfere with it. The Fleet must be free. Why there is no admiral on our \Var Council and no admiral in our Cabin, t 1 do not know and I cannot understand. The Fleet is our all in all. And onlv a fighting admiral can understand the Fleet.—"London Daily Chronicle."