Armageddon supervened, and the rest of Sir Eric Geddes' career is history. When a new and sure hand was needed at the Admiralty, Mr. Lloyd George was not long in making the only suitable choice. Sir Eric Geddes' bluff hearty manner, positively smacking, despite his inland training, of all that a viking ought to smack of, had long marked him out as the ideal ruler of the King's Navy, and his name was soon known and feared wherever the seagull dips its wing. Underneath the breezy exterior lay an iron will, like a precipitate in a tonic for neurasthenia, and scarcely had he boarded the famous building in Whitehall and mounted his quarter-deck (Naval terms are always used at the Admiralty, the windows being called "port-holes" and the staircases the "companion") than victory began to crown the arms of the Senior Service.
But peace no less than war finds an outlet for the energies of the old sea-dog, and the veriest hint of a railway strike finds him ready with flotillas of motor lorries in commission and himself in his flag char-à-banc, aptly named the Queen of Eryx, at their head. Lever, marlin-spike or steering wheel, it is all one to the brain which can co-ordinate squadrons as easily as rolling-stock, to the man who is now sometimes known as the Stormy Petrol of the Cabinet. Yet even so the sailor is strongest in him still. It is not generally known that Sir Eric has already cocked his weather eye at our inland waterways as an auxiliary line of defence in case of need. Experience has taught him that it is even now quicker to travel, let us say, from Boston (Lincs.) to Wolverhampton, by river and canal than by rail, and the future may yet see Thames, Trent and Severn churned to foam by motor barges of incredible rapidity, distributing the nation's food supplies.
This is one of the things that the Ministry of Transport has, so to say, up its sleeve, and is alone a sufficient answer to those who suggest that this Ministry has outlived its hour. There is a grim Norse spirit amongst its officials, inspired perhaps by their chieftain's name, and already the plans for a first-class Pullman galley are under way. As Longfellow sings:—
"Never saw the wild North Sea
Such a gallant company
Sail its billows blue;
Never, while they cruised and quarrelled,
Old King Gorm or Blue Tooth Harold,
Owned a ship so well apparelled,
Boasted such a crew."