We suddenly found ourselves within 1000 yards of two or three big Hun cruisers.  They switched on their searchlights and started firing like nothing on earth.  Then they put their searchlights on us, but for some extraordinary reason did not fire on us.  As, of course, we were going full speed we lost them in a moment, but I must say, that I, and I think everybody else, thought that that was the end, but one does not feel afraid or panicky.  I think I felt rather cooler then than at any other time.  I asked lots of people afterwards what they felt like, and they all said the same thing.  It all happens in a few seconds; one hasn’t time to think; but never in all my life have I been so thankful to see daylight again—­and I don’t think I ever want to see another night like that—­it’s such an awful strain.  One does not notice it at the time, but it’s the reaction afterwards.

“I never noticed I was tired till I got back to harbour, and then we all turned in and absolutely slept like logs.  We were seventy-two hours with little or no sleep.  The skipper was perfectly wonderful.  He never left the bridge for a minute for twenty-four hours, and was on the bridge or in the chart-house the whole time we were out (the chart-house is an airy dog-kennel that opens off the bridge) and I’ve never seen anybody so cool and unruffled.  He stood there smoking his pipe as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.

“One quite forgot all about time.  I was relieved at 4 A.M., and on looking at my watch found I had been up there nearly twelve hours, and then discovered I was rather hungry.  The skipper and I had some cheese and biscuits, ham sandwiches, and water on the bridge, and then I went down and brewed some cocoa and ship’s biscuit.”

    Not in the thick of the fight,
      Not in the press of the odds,
    Do the heroes come to their height
      Or we know the demi-gods.

    That stands over till peace. 
      We can only perceive
    Men returned from the seas,
      Very grateful for leave.

    They grant us sudden days
      Snatched from their business of war. 
    We are too close to appraise
      What manner of men they are.

    And whether their names go down
      With age-kept victories,
    Or whether they battle and drown
      Unreckoned is hid from our eyes.

    They are too near to be great,
      But our children shall understand
    When and how our fate
      Was changed, and by whose hand.

    Our children shall measure their worth. 
      We are content to be blind,
    For we know that we walk on a new-born earth
      With the saviours of mankind.

IV

THE MINDS OF MEN

HOW IT IS DONE