We looked out into the black wall in the direction of the sea and could see no sign of a patrol boat. How had it been able to inform this lone sentry of that flying ray which disclosed the line of a coastal road to any one at sea? He would not accept the best argumentative burr that our chauffeur might produce as sufficient explanation or guarantee. Most Scottish of Scots in physiognomy and shrewd matter-of-factness, as revealed in the glare of the lantern, he might have been on watch in the Highland fastnesses in Prince Charlie’s time.
“Captain R——, of the Royal Navy!” explained the officer, introducing himself.
“I’ll take your name and address!” said the sentry.
“The Admiralty. I take the responsibility.”
“As I’ll report, sir!” said the sentry, not so convinced but he burred something further into the chauffeur’s ear.
This seems to have little to do with the navy, but it has much, indeed, as a part of an unfathomable, complicated business of guards within guards, intelligence battling with intelligence, deceiving raiders by land or sea, of those responsible for the safety of England and the mastery of the seas.
* * * * *
It is from the navy yard that the ships go forth to battle and to the navy yard they must return for supplies and for the grooming beat of hammers in the dry dock. Those who work at a navy yard keep the navy’s house; welcome home all the family, from Dreadnoughts to trawlers, give them cheer and shelter, and bind up their wounds.
The quarter-deck of action for Admiral Lowry, commanding the great base on the Forth, which was begun before the war and hastened to completion since, was a substantial brick office building. Adjoining his office, where he worked with engineers’ blue prints as well as with sea maps, he had fitted up a small bedroom where he slept, to be at hand if any emergency arose.
Partly we walked, as he showed us over his domain of steam-shovels, machine shops, cement factories, of building and repairs, of coaling and docking, and partly we rode on a car that ran over temporary rails laid for trucks loaded with rocks and dirt. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, a river bottom had been filled in back of the quays with material that had been excavated to form a vast basin with cement walls, where squadrons of Dreadnoughts might rest and await their turn to be warped into the great dry docks which open off it in chasmlike galleries.