This partially explains the love of the navy for its work; its cheerful repetition of the drills which seem such a wearisome business to the civilian.  The men know the reason of their drudgery.  It is an all-convincing bull’s-eye reason.  Ping-ping!  One heard the familiar sound of sub-calibre practice, which seems as out of proportion in a fifteen-inch gun as a mouse-squeak from an elephant whom you expect to trumpet.  As the result appears in sub-calibre practice, so it is practically bound to appear in target practice; as it appears in target practice, so it is bound to appear in battle practice.  It was on the flagship that I saw a device which Sir John referred to as the next best thing to having the Germans come out.  He took as much delight in it as the gun-layers, who were firing at German Dreadnoughts of the first line, as large as your thumb, which were in front of a sort of hooded arrangement with the guns of a British Dreadnought inside—­ the rest I censor myself before the regular censor sees it.

When we heard a report like that of a small target rifle inside the arrangement a small red or a small white splash rose from the metallic platter of a sea.  Thus the whole German navy has been pounded to pieces again and again.  It is a great game.  The gun-layers never tire of it and they think they know the reason as well as anybody why von Tirpitz keeps his Dreadnoughts at home.

But elsewhere I saw some real firing; for ships must have their regular target practice, war or no war.  If those cruisers steaming across the range had been sending six or eight-inch shrapnel, we should have preferred not to be so near that towed square of canvas.  Flashes from turrets indistinguishable at a distance from the neutral-toned bodies of the vessels and the shells struck, making great splashes just beyond the target, which was where they ought to go.

A familiar scene, but with a new meaning when the time is one of war.  So far as my observation is worth anything, it was very good shooting, indeed.  One broadside would have put a destroyer out of business as easily as a “Jack Johnson” does for a dug-out; and it would have made a cruiser of the same class as the one firing pretty groggy—­this not from any experience of being on a light cruiser or any desire to be on one when it receives such a salute.  But it seems to be waiting for the Germans any time that they want it.

Oh, that towed square of canvas!  It is the symbol of the object of all building of guns, armour, and ships, all the nursing in dry dock, all the admiral’s plans, all the parliamentary appropriations, all the striving on board ship in man’s competition with man, crew with crew, gun with gun, and ship with ship.  One had in mind some vast factory plant where every unit was efficiently organized; but that comparison would not do.  None will.  The Grand Fleet is the Grand Fleet.  Ability gets its reward, as in the competition of civil life.  There