Throughout England, as in these naval officers beside me, there is the same tense yet disciplined expectancy.  As we lunch and talk, on this cruiser at rest, messages come in perpetually; the cruiser itself is ready for the open sea, at an hour and a half’s notice; the seaplanes pass out and come in over the mouth of the harbour on their voyages of discovery and report, and these destroyers and mine-sweepers that he so quietly near us will be out again to-night in the North Sea, grappling with every difficulty and facing every danger, in the true spirit of a wonderful service, while we land-folk sleep and eat in peace;—­grumbling no doubt, with our morning newspaper and coffee, when any of the German destroyers who come out from Zeebrugge are allowed to get home with a whole skin.  “What on earth is the Navy about?” Well, the Navy knows.  Germany is doing her very worst, and will go on doing it—­for a time.  The line of defensive watch in the North Sea is long; the North Sea is a big place; the Germans often have the luck of the street-boy who rings a bell and runs away, before the policeman comes up.  But the Navy has no doubts.  The situation, says one of my cheerful hosts, is “quite healthy” and we shall see “great things in the coming months.”  We had better leave it at that!

Now let us look at these destroyers in another scene.  It is the last day of February, and I find myself on a military steamer, bound for a French Port, and on my way to the British Headquarters in France.  With me is the same dear daughter who accompanied me last year as “dame secretaire” on my first errand.  The boat is crowded with soldiers, and before we reach the French shore we have listened to almost every song—­old and new—­in Tommy’s repertory.  There is even “Tipperary,” a snatch, a ghost of “Tipperary,” intermingled with many others, rising and falling, no one knows why, started now here, now there, and dying away again after a line or two.  It is a draft going out to France for the first time, north countrymen, by their accent; and life-belts and submarines seem to amuse them hugely, to judge by the running fire of chaff that goes on.  But, after a while, I cease to listen.  I am thinking first of what awaits us on the further shore, on which the lights are coming out, and of those interesting passes inviting us to G.H.Q. as “Government Guests,” which lie safe in our handbags.  And then, my thoughts slip back to a conversation of the day before, with Dr. Addison, the new Minister of Munitions.

A man in the prime of life, with whitening hair—­prematurely white, for the face and figure are quite young still—­and stamped, so far as expression and aspect are concerned, by those social and humane interests which first carried him into Parliament.  I have been long concerned with Evening Play Centres for school-children in Hoxton, one of the most congested quarters of our East End.  And seven years ago I began to hear of the young and public-spirited doctor and man of science, who had