“But you must want it now. You must make yourself want it.”
“Because there’s nothing else to want?”
“Just that.” Hartington was determined that, for his own sake, John must be made to see his position with perfect clearness. “But in time of war,” he went on, “an Admiral’s position is different from his position now.”
“The chances are heavily against his having a command.”
“Oh, for that matter, the chances are heavily against success in anything. To reckon on that basis is hopeless. It’s no good to count on failure.... Imagine you have absolute success, and reckon backwards from that, if you like. Imagine that there is war. You are the Admiral commanding the Home Fleet. You have—you have the destinies of the world in your hands: it would be little less than that. Doesn’t there seem something fine——”
“Assuming, for the sake of comparison, an equivalent success elsewhere, I’d rather shape destiny with other tools.”
“As Prime Minister?”
John smiled for a moment. Then he said seriously: “Or write a great book. Or—oh, there are dozens of better implements.”
“But suppose—and this is the ultimate test—suppose you won a Trafalgar?”