'Nonsense, my dear chap.'
'Look here,' he cried, 'on what, in your opinion, do we depend for victory?'
I was silent for a few seconds before replying.
'On the mobilization of all our Empire's forces,' I replied, 'on steady, persevering courage, and on the righteousness of our cause.'
'But supposing our cause hadn't been righteous, what then?'
I saw what was in his mind, but I did not feel like yielding to him. 'It's no use talking this high-falutin stuff, Edgecumbe,' I said. 'We are at war, and war means in these days, at all events, big guns. It means the utilization of all the material forces at our command.'
'Then you believe more in a big army, and in what they call our unconquerable Navy, than in Almighty God? Do you believe in God at all, Luscombe?'
'Of course I do,' I replied; 'I am no atheist. All the same, it is our
Navy which has saved us.'
'Admiral Beatty doesn't believe that,' he replied, 'and if any man knows what a navy can do, he does. Your position is identical with that of the Germans. Why, man, if God Almighty hadn't been very patient with us, we should have been beaten long ago. Germany's materialism, Germany's atheism, German devilry has been our salvation as a nation. If the logic of big guns had been conclusive, we should have been annihilated. That chap Rudyard Kipling saw a long way into the truth.'
'When? Where?' I asked.