Told in gallant deeds

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

I have told you how the Germans invaded Belgium and there were terrible fighting and ravaging, in which not only soldiers but also women and children were killed. Well, the Germans were even more angry with Britain than with Belgium. They would have dearly liked to send over hundreds of thousands of soldiers in big ships to land on the east coast of England, perhaps at Cromer, or Hunstanton, or Felixstowe, or other places where children often go for their summer holidays.

In our next chapter you will hear of how Napoleon waited impatiently at Boulogne in the hope of swooping down on England. There is a tradition in Dorsetshire that he did come secretly just to see what stretch of shore on that lonely coast would be most suitable for a landing of troops. This tradition or old belief is embodied in a wonderful short story by Mr. Thomas Hardy.

What would the German soldiers have done to us if they had landed? I am afraid they would have treated us even worse than they treated Belgium. The whole countryside would have been laid waste with fire and sword, and thousands of innocent people might have been killed.

Be thankful that England was not invaded like that. Be thankful that, while the poor Belgians were being bullied and beaten down, we could all sleep safely in our beds.

You know why that was. We owed our safety entirely to the strong arm of our Navy. All round our shores, day and night, our gallant tars were watching, watching. And the ships full of German soldiers could not think of coming. Our Navy would have blown them to pieces if they had tried.

Still, it was a terribly anxious time for Admiral Sir John Jellicoe and the brave officers and men under him. Many accidents can happen at sea which could not happen on land, and the whole Fleet knew well that the Germans might make a dash for it, and perhaps land a small force of men after all.

The portraits of Sir John Jellicoe show him as a man with a very strong face and a determined mouth and chin, but the expression of his eyes is full of kindness.

He earned his great position by sheer hard work. When he was a naval cadet, he took three firsts, and won a prize of £80 as well at the Royal Naval College. Afterwards, he studied naval guns and the art of firing them.

Admiral Jellicoe is one of the officers of the Royal Navy who have received the Board of Trade medal for gallantry in saving life at sea. He himself, too, has been saved from drowning at sea, for he was in command of the Victoria which was rammed by the Camperdown twenty-one years ago; in fact, he was one of the very few who were saved in that terrible disaster.

Quite early in the war, a bluejacket of H.M.S. Zealandia, the fine battleship which was given to the Mother Country by the great Dominion of New Zealand, wrote a poem called “The Walls of Jellicoe.”