A tall ship on other naval occasions

E-text prepared by Al Haines
Transcriber's note:
Bartimeus is the pseudonym of Captain Lewis Ritchie, R.N.
On Other Naval Occasions
Author of Naval Occasions
. . . All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And a laughing yarn from a merry fellow rover, And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over. JOHN MASEFIELD
Cassell and Company, Ltd London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
First published September 1915. Reprinted September and October 1915.
It is almost superfluous to observe that the following sketches contain no attempt at the portrait of an individual. The majority are etched in with the ink of pure imagination. A few are composite sketches of a large number of originals with whom the Author has been shipmates in the past and whose friendship he is grateful to remember.
Of these, some, alas! have finished the long trick. To them, at no risk of breaking their quiet sleep— Ave atque vale .
Crab-Pots, The Day, and Chummy-Ships appeared originally in Blackwood's Magazine , and are reproduced here by kind permission of the Editor.
In moments of crisis the disciplined human mind works as a thing detached, refusing to be hurried or flustered by outward circumstance. Time and its artificial divisions it does not acknowledge. It is concerned with preposterous details and with the ludicrous, and it is acutely solicitous of other people's welfare, whilst working at a speed mere electricity could never attain.