It was chilly there on the bridge, with the prospect too entrancing not to remain even if one froze. But here stepped in naval preparedness with thick, short coats of llama wool.
“Served out to all the men last winter, when we were in the thick of it patrolling,” the commander explained. “You’ll not get cold in that!”
“And yourself?” was suggested to the commander.
“Oh, it is not cold enough for that in September! We’re hardened to it. You come from the land and feel the change of air; we are at sea all the time,” he replied. He was without even an overcoat; and the ease with which he held his footing made land lubbers feel their awkwardness.
A jumpy, uncertain tidal sea was running. Yet our destroyer glided over the waves, cut through them, played with them, and let them seem to play with her, all the while laughing at them with the power of the purring vitals that drove her steadily on.
“Look out!” which at the front in France was a signal to jump for a “funk pit.” We ducked, as a cloud of spray passed above the heavy canvas and clattered like hail against the smokestack. “There won’t be any more!” said the commander. He was right. He knew that passage. One wondered if he did not know every gallon of water in the North Sea, which he had experienced in all its moods.
Sheltered by the smokestack down on the main deck, one of our party, who loved not the sea for its own sake but endured it as a passageway to the sight of the Grand Fleet, had found warmth, if not comfort. Not for him that invitation to come below given by the chief engineer, who rose out of a round hole with a pleasant, “How d’y do!” air to get a sniff of the fresh breeze, wizard of the mysterious power of the turbines which sent the destroyer marching so noiselessly. He was the one who transferred the captain’s orders into that symphony in mechanism. Turn a lever and you had a dozen more knots; not with a leap or a jerk, but like a cat’s sleek stretching of muscles. Not by the slightest tremor did you realise the acceleration; only by watching some stationary object as you flew past.
Now a sweep of smooth water at the entrance to a harbour, and a turn—and there it was: the sea power of England!