“After I have made known my intentions,” began Nelson’s last order; and it expressed the experience of a hundred battles—that the Second in Command (and in these days it may well be amplified into the individual officers in command) are to fulfil the spirit of the peace manœuvre teaching, and assist by the teaching in carrying out the meaning of brief signals to the destruction of the enemy’s Fleet. The secret of success lies in the first part of the sentence: “After I have made known my intentions.”
Confidence is a plant of slow growth. Long and constant association of ships of a Fleet is essential to success. A new-comer is often more dangerous than the enemy.
An Army may be improvised in case of war, but not a Navy.
Immense importance of constant readiness at all times. A Fleet always ready to go to sea at an hour’s notice is a splendid national life preserver! Here comes in the water-tube boiler! Without previous notice or even an inkling, we have been ready to start in one hour with water-tube boiler ships. You can’t exaggerate this! One bucket of water ready on the spot in the shape of an instantly ready Fleet will stop the conflagration of war which all the Fire Brigades of the world won’t stop a little later on! Never forget that from the very nature of sea fighting an initial Naval disaster is irretrievable, irreparable, eternal. Naval Colensos have no Paardebergs!
Suddenness is the secret of success at sea, because suddenness is practicable, and remember that rashness may be the height of prudence. How very rash Nelson was at the Nile to go in after dark to fight the French Fleet with no chart of the shoals of Aboukir!
But you must be sure of your Fleet and they must be sure of you! Every detail previously thought out. Trust no one! (My friend, Maurice Bourke, used to tell a story of the Yankee barber, who put up in his shop: “To trust is to bust, and to bust is hell!” which means “no credit given”). Make the very best of things as they are. Criminal to wait for something better. “We strain at the gnat of perfection and swallow the camel of unreadiness.”
“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!
