"Gunnery."
"H'm," commented Uncle Brian, as if the announcement did not interest him very much.
For nearly half a minute he lay back in a lounge-chair, regarding his nephew through half-closed eyes.
"What's your opinion about the big-ship controversy?" he asked at length. "Do you think that the battleship is a back number?"
"No, I do not," replied Peter, for this was a topic that always aroused his professional enthusiasm. "It's the capital ship all the time that will count. History proved that. In the 'eighties the French thought that a horde of torpedo-boats would replace battleships. Destroyers formed the antidote. In the last war the Huns were going to wipe out the British capital ships with their submarines—a sort of attrition process. Did they? They never sunk a single dreadnought or super-dreadnought by means of a submarine attack. The nearest they did was to torpedo the Marlborough at Jutland, and she got home under her own steam. Then there's the aerial menace——"
"Ah!" ejaculated Uncle Brian.
"Wash out," declared Peter. "There's no instance of a warship being destroyed in action by aerial attack."
"But that form of warfare has developed tremendously since the Armistice," remarked his uncle.
"Under peace conditions," Peter reminded him. "Take the Agamemnon tests. That vessel was directed by wireless. There was no crew on board. The airmen could hover over the ship and drop their bombs without hindrance. If her anti-aircraft guns had been manned the conditions would have been very different. As a matter of fact, the navy will find an effective safeguard against aerial attack——"
"Has it?" inquired Uncle Brian eagerly.