“The Great Silent Navy.”
The usual motto is “Silence” or “Deeds, not words,” which you will see ornamenting some conspicuous place in a ship.[2] It has been said by landsmen that the most striking feature to them in a British man-of-war when at sea is the noiseless, ceaseless, sleepless, yet unobtrusive, energy that characterises everyone and everything on board! If so, we sailors don’t notice it, and it is the result of nature! Gales of wind, sudden fogs, immense speeds, the much multiplied dangers of collision and wreck from these terrific speeds, as in Destroyers and even in large ships, all these circumstances automatically react on all on board and are nature’s education by environment. There is no place for the unthinking or the lethargic. He is a positive danger! Every individual in a man-of-war has his work cut out! “Think and act for yourself” is to be the motto of the future, not “Let us wait for orders!”
Such may be said of sea fights! No mountains delay us, and, as Scripture says, the way of a ship is trackless! The enemy will suddenly confront us as an Apparition! At every moment we must be ready! Can this be acquired by grown men? No! it is the force of habit. You must commence early. Our Nelsons and Benbows began the sea life when they first put their breeches on! The brother of the Black Prince (John of Gaunt) joined the Navy and was in a sea fight when he was 10 years of age! Far exceeding anything known in history does our future Trafalgar depend on promptitude and rapid decision, and on every eventuality having been foreseen by those in command. But these attributes cannot be acquired late in life, nor by those who have lived the life of cabbages! So begin early and work continuously. Then if there is war your opportunity must come! Like Kitchener, you will then walk over the cabbages!
A Group at Langham House. Photograph taken and sent to Sir John Fisher by the Empress Marie of Russia.
1. Mrs. Neeld. 2. Miss Diana Neeld. 3. The Princess Victoria. 4. Lady Fisher. 5. Queen Alexandra. 6. Miss Kitty Fullerton. 7. Sir John Fisher.
CHAPTER VIII
JONAH’S GOURD
“Came up in a night
And perished in a night.”
Jonah, chap. iv, verse 10.
The above words came into my mind late last night when tired out with destroying masses of papers and letters (mostly malignant abuse or the emanations of senile dotage), I sat back in my chair and soliloquised over what had happened to all these pestilent attackers of mine; and I said to myself in those immortal words in Jonah, “Doest thou well to be angry?” and for a few brief moments I really quite felt like Stephen praying for his enemies when they stoned him! What has become of all these stone-throwers and backbiters, I asked myself! Like Jonah’s Gourd—“A worm has smote them all”—and they have withered into obscurity. But yet it’s interesting, as this is a Book of Records, to tear out one sheet or so and reproduce here some replies to the nefarious nonsense one had to deal with at that time of democratising the Navy. I reprint verbatim a few pages I wrote in October, 1906. These particular words that follow here were directed against those who assailed my principles of (1) The fighting efficiency of the Fleet, (2) Its instant readiness for war.