Something went wrong in the foretop that day, and its captain fell to the hatchway grating below. I was standing a few feet from the spot, and it took me the best part of the day to sponge his blood out of my clothing. We stopped the evolution for a day, and the following day another man was killed performing the same drill, and we buried them both that afternoon in the old cemetery at the base of Mt. Etna. At noon on the third day the ship was ordered to go through the same evolution. Meantime a petty officer named Hicks had been promoted captain of the foretop. He was one of the finest men in the ship. He could dance a hornpipe, sing a good song, make a splendid showing with the gloves or single-sticks; was something of a wag, and when he laughed the deck trembled. His promotion was not wholly a thing of joy, for the superstition of the sea gripped him tight. He was the third man, and to most of us the number had an evil omen. Within an hour after his promotion, the red flush had gone from his cheeks. He was silent and managed to be alone most of the afternoon and evening of that day. He had been a signal boy and was an expert in the language of flags and in flashing the electric light. He was unable to sleep and passed most of the night on deck with the sentries. It was noticed that he begged permission to "monkey" with the electric-light signalling apparatus aft on the poop. When we began the sail drill the following day, the attention of every man on the ship was focused on the captain of the foretop, and at the order—"Away aloft!" he sprang at the rigging like a cat. We stood from under. There was a breathless hush as the second order was given—"Bear out on the yard-arm!" It was the fatal order at which the other men had lost their nerve and their lives! As it rang out over the old ship, we gulped down our lumps and secretly thanked Him in the hollow of whose hand lie the seas. The evolution was completed, and when the man of the foretop descended to the deck, half a dozen men gripped Hicks, and hugged him and kissed him with tears in their eyes.
Something really did happen in the foretop that day—something happened to its captain, though nobody knew just what it was. He came to the deck a changed man, and those who knew him best, felt it most. We could not analyze it—he could not himself. I got into the secret by accident. Some weeks later, it may have been months, an officer from another ship was lunching with a friend in our wardroom. I served the lunch and overheard the following conversation:
"Have you a signal man by the name of Hicks—Billy Hicks—on board?"
"Yes, what about him?"
"Well," the officer said, smiling, "we were ten miles out at sea a few weeks ago when I noticed the signals flashing all over the heavens. I was officer of the deck. It was about seven bells in the first watch. I called my signal officer, told him to take down what he read." He pulled out his notebook, still smiling and, spelling out the words, read:
"God this is Billy Hicks. I ain't afraid of no bloomin' man nor devil. I ain't afraid of no Davey Jones bleedin' locker neither. I ain't like a bawlin baby afussin' at his dad for sweeties. I doant ask you for no favours but just one. This is it—when I strike the foretop to-morrow let me do it with the guts of a man what is clean and God dear God from this here day on giv me the feeling I use to have long ago when I nelt at my mother's knee an said Our Father. Good night dear God."
I went out into the pantry of the wardroom, jotted down as much of this as I could remember, and it gave me a splendid introduction to the captain of the foretop.
The greatest problem of my life, and perhaps of any life at the age of twenty-one, was the problem of sex instinct. I have often wondered why that problem is discussed so meagrely. I have often wondered why, for instance, Kipling and Frank Bullen and W. Clark Russell, in discussing the life of soldiers and sailors with whom this is a specialized problem, have not frankly discussed the terrific battle that every full-blooded man must fight on this question.
The moment I arrived in that foreign port I was overwhelmed with a sense of personal freedom. There I was, with a splendid physical organization that had just come into its own, and around me in the mess and on the ship's deck and on the streets of the cities—everywhere—I heard nothing else but conversation on this problem. To nine out of every ten men it was a joke. It was laughed at, played with, and I knew, of course, that young men of my own age were being smashed on the rocks of this problem.
The British Navy serves out once or twice a week a ration, which is one of the biggest jokes of naval life. It is a small ration of lime juice, and the rumoured purpose of it is to modify in some degree this tremendous natural sex instinct. To most of us it was like spitting on a burning building—the battle went on fiercer every day of life! I tackled it from two points of view; first, the moral point of view. My religion demanded purity, continence and self-mastery. The other point of view—I don't think this was clear to me at the time; I don't believe that I intentionally pursued this course with the object in view that it actually accomplished; nevertheless, whether intentional or unintentional, planned or unplanned, the effect was produced. The physical work required of me was light, very light, and all my leisure time was spent in study. I studied so hard and so conscientiously that I tired not only my mind, but my body. There came a time when I was dimly conscious, however, that I was doing two things by hard study: I was preserving my body, conserving my vital energy, and at the same time training my mind, gathering information and equipping myself intellectually. At the present moment my body is as lithe, as powerful and as enduring as the body of a youth of twenty, and I attribute this wealth of health to the fact that twenty-five years ago, I tackled this problem of self-mastery and laid the foundations for my present strength.