But oh the cruel work of war! The legacy of broken bodies and broken hearts! We look on, and look up to the City of God even now coming down from God out of heaven. Sursum corda! The hour of redemption draweth nigh.
CHAPTER IX[ToC]
WITH THE GRAND FLEET
Always "Ready, Aye Ready"—The Deciding Factor—One Hundred and Fifty Chaplains—On the "Bulwark"—"The Church Pennant" Postponed—Sunday on a Battleship—The Sailor and the Thought of Death—Stories from the Fleet—From a Torpedo-boat—The Shore Chaplain's Opportunity—Christian Bravery—"Save Yourself; I'll let go."
Everybody is asking, Where is the Grand Fleet? And that is just what the Germans would like to know. It has a marvellous facility for appearing and disappearing. Occasionally we receive letters bearing the address, "In the North Sea or elsewhere," and sometimes we think it is more elsewhere than there. No postmark gives its location away, no newspaper paragraph lets us into the secret. And then suddenly it appears:
Out of the everywhere into the here,
and the Germans find to their dismay a part of it off the Dogger Bank, and the sleepy Turk wakes up to find another part in the Dardanelles.