Soon their talk drifted back to the all-important topic of the coming crisis.
“It always seemed to me,” said Evans, “that a navy could conveniently be likened to a living organism, a man, for instance. A man has senses—sight, hearing, etc.—which tell him what’s happening about him. Nerves carry the impressions from the sense organs to the central station, the brain, where information is sorted into the springs of action; other nerves carry messages from the brain to the muscles that work the arms and legs—and incidentally the teeth. Now in the navy your patrols, scouts, planes, drifters, etc., with their observers and hydrophones, and all forms of radio receiving apparatus, are the senses, and I should include under that head, spies. In place of the muscles, fists, and teeth you have the ships’ engines and the guns, torpedoes, bombs, and such like. The nervous system is the general staff which determines policy, the admirals who execute it, and communications which are the nerves that bring information into the navy’s brain, and in turn give the word for action. Communications, of course, comprise flag signals, blinkers, semaphores, couriers, postal service, telephones, telegraph, radio, and the newer methods, such as infra-red rays.
“Now it seems to me the importance of communications hasn’t been emphasized half enough. The methods available are highly developed, but their value isn’t clearly enough appreciated. You can hardly find a finer, keener, better-trained bunch of men anywhere than the officers of our navy, but the profession has grown so complex and the duties to be learned so manifold that it takes an exceptional man to grasp all the possibilities science has developed and to see them in a proper perspective. The average naval officer takes far more interest in ordnance and gunnery than he does in communications. The difference between an athlete and a lummox is not in the muscles, but in the nervous system which coördinates their action. Provided the muscles are not atrophied or diseased, they’ll do what the nerves tell ’em to. Now gunnery is obviously important—so obviously that the personnel tends to look on it as the whole thing. Of course it must be efficient, but it has been ever since Sims made it so; it must be kept up to the mark, but it is a strong tradition in the navy to keep it so, and I don’t think you’ll have any trouble on that score. It is intelligence and coördination, and communication in particular that you must look out for in order to make your fighting strength effective. Just as the skill and wisdom of the gunnery officer direct the titanic force of the guns to the point where it is most telling, so the controlling mind, acting through communications, directs the force of the entire fleet; that’s the field where the minimum energy will yield the largest return; put your best efforts in there.”
“Don’t forget morale,” said Mortimer.
“Quite right,” said Evans; “morale is more than half the fight; without it no amount of skill or intelligence will avail; but without the aid of the mind morale is flung helpless at the mercy of superior skill in an opponent. I am inclined to assume morale; and I believe it is a justified assumption, for to stress and foster it is a tradition well maintained in our service.”
Evans went on to explain to Mortimer some of the methods of communication which had been developed: the internal communications in a ship, the dual use of a single antenna to receive two messages simultaneously on different wave-lengths, the use of infra-red rays for secret messages between ships in a fleet, and many other things which Mortimer had never had time to learn.
“I wish I could make you Director of Naval Communications,” said Mortimer. “Unfortunately the rank that goes with that position is rear admiral. Under the existing regulations the highest rank I could give you is lieutenant-commander. If you were a captain, I could make you a temporary rear admiral in order to hold that position, but I don’t know of any way that it could be done straight from civil life.”
“If I were you I wouldn’t try to make me an admiral or even a lieutenant-commander,” answered Evans. “Professional naval officers are apt to resent having men out of civil life put over them with superior naval rank. They’d feel that I was ‘striped way up,’ even as lieutenant-commander, and that I hadn’t earned my rank. I should encounter friction and difficulties in consequence. I sure want to help you in any capacity I can, but my suggestion is that you make me a warrant officer, say radio gunner.”
“Radio gunner!” exclaimed Mortimer; “that’s a pretty small job for you. You’d be subordinate to a lot of ensigns just out of Annapolis.”
“It’s not necessarily such a small job; officers of high rank are apt to heed the advice of a dependable warrant officer, regarding him as a technical expert. Often they respect a warrant officer who knows his business a good deal more than they do ensigns and lieutenants. If he works his opportunities right, he may put over more than purely technical ideas. A man who doesn’t use his opportunities right won’t get very far in warfare though he wears the gold braid of an admiral.”