When the innermost recesses of the Admiralty archives yield their secrets to the historian there will be some strange and stirring events to relate. But however diligently the chroniclers may search amongst the accumulated records at Whitehall there will still remain one outstanding performance, one shining example of courage and endurance of which no trace can there be found; for it was never officially known how Reginald McTaggart upheld the honour of the White Ensign in the Gulf of Lyons.
Reginald does not in the ordinary way suffer from excess of modesty; indeed he has been known to hint that on more than one occasion it was primarily due to his efforts that the world was eventually made safe for democracy; but of this his greatest exploit he will never speak without pressure, and even then but diffidently.
When William Hohenzollern first cried "Havoc" and let slip the Prussian Guard, Reginald was among the most unsophisticated of landsmen. He had never in his life so much as heard a bo'sun's pipe and could scarcely distinguish a battleship from a bathing-machine. But the blood of a maritime ancestry ran hot in his veins, and, being too highly educated to get on in the Army, he placed himself at the disposal of the Senior Service, which embraced him gladly. Henceforth his career was one of unbroken triumph.
Having taken a First in Mechanical Sciences at Cambridge, Reginald was at once detailed off for deck-swabbing on a Portsmouth depôt ship; but one day an enterprising Rear-Admiral of the younger school, noting his scientific manner of manipulating a squeegee, had him sent before the Flag Captain, who, on learning his antecedents, recommended the blushing Reginald for the post of batman to the Senior Wireless Officer. Here his talents showed to such advantage that in a little over a year he received a commission as technical officer, and was placed in charge of an experimental Torpedo School, well away from the storms and tempests that vexed his less gifted brothers.
It were tedious to relate Reginald's adventures during the next two years—how time and again he baffled the cunning devices of the German naval scientists—how he invented a pivotal billiard-table for use on drifters in rough weather and perfected an electro-magnetic contrivance by means of which enemy submarines were inveigled into torpedoing themselves without warning. All this and much else is accessible to the formal historian; besides, Reginald tells people himself. We will hurry on to the grand exploit.
It occurred shortly after he was appointed to a post on the British Naval Mission at Athens. He had left England little more than a month when the Sea Lords became uneasy. Trouble broke out among the torpedoes and there was no one to set matters right. Paragraphs began to appear in the Press. The result was an urgent wireless message to Athens recalling Reginald at once. There was to be no delay.
"Are you prepared to start immediately?" asked the Vice-Admiral, when he had briefly outlined the situation.
Reginald saluted briskly.
"I don't quite know how you'll go," continued the Vice-Admiral. "We haven't an armed ship sailing West for a week. There's a little Greek trading steamer leaving for Marseilles to-morrow morning, but I'm afraid you would find her very incommodious. Would you care to risk it?"
"I start in the morning, Sir," said Reginald tersely.