“International Law,” cut in the coxswain quickly. “Conventions and all that.... Why, there’d be no limit to anything if it weren’t for international law. An enemy could go off in his beastly submarine and paralyse the trade routes.”
“Paralyse ’em—how?” inquired the bow man.
“Just torpedoing ’em, of course, you ass.”
“What, merchant ships?”
The jurist nodded.
“But no one could do that. I mean you’d never get a naval officer to do that, international law or no international law. That ’ud be piracy—like those fellows at Algiers. ’Member the lecture last week?”
“I don’t mean we’d do it,” conceded the coxswain. “But some nations might.”
The idealist shook his head. “No naval officer would,” he repeated stoutly, “whatever his nationality.”
“The surface of the sea’s good enough for me,” chipped in No. 2. “I don’t want to bomb women or torpedo merchant ships. I’m going to be captain of a destroyer.” He raised his head. “Thirty knots at night, my boy!... Upper-deck torpedo tubes and all that....”
“I’d blow you out of the water with a 12-inch gun,” said Number 5, speaking for the first time, and laying aside a magazine. “Gunnery is going to save this country if ever we have a war. That’s why gunnery lieutenants get promoted quickly—my governor told me so.”