matter.  This was to be done by the so-called almighty torpedo.  I received notice from our secret agent at Sebastopol that a serious expedition was being organised, that the Turkish ships at Batoum were to be destroyed or frightened away at any cost. Frightened away, indeed! To the uninitiated a torpedo is a thing to frighten any one away.  We had heard of magnificent results of torpedo trials in peace, how ships (I fancy only hulks) had been blown up, columns of water half a mile high being sent into the air, &c.  Nothing, it was said, could save you.  Whatever my ideas, however nervous I may have felt, I knew that those I was commanding had no fear—­they don’t know what it means, the more especially of a not understood possible casualty, and though more enlightened as to torpedoes and their accepted effects, I wasn’t to show my people a bad example.  When lying in bed in the middle of the night, having read the warning letter before retiring, I thought:—­’Suppose one of these nasty things goes off and blows the flagship up at this moment.  How pleasant!  What cowardly things these are; no fair fight, up you go, unshriven.  I have heard that a man who is hanged is likely to go to heaven; I wonder if the same chance would be given to him blown up by a torpedo?’ These sort of feelings came over me.  However, said I, ’Let us see if we can prevent their being realised;’ so I went to work to try to do so.  As a sportsman I calculated that to fire at a dark object in the night, especially when that object had a background of high hills such as we had at Batoum, was most difficult, so the first order I gave was no lights, not even a cigarette light; utter darkness under severe penalties.  Next, considering that Batoum is a very small port, with an entrance difficult to find even in broad daylight, almost impossible in the night without the lighthouse as a guide, I ordered that the lighthouse should not be lighted.  Then I arranged with the shore authorities that no lights should be seen in the town; this was more difficult, as there were many Russian friendlies in Batoum.

However, the application of somewhat severe discipline made Batoum like a city of the dead after dark.

In addition to these precautions I put a barrier of booms ahead of the ships lying in the port, placed guard-boats to watch it at the entrance of the harbour, and having done all this, I bided my time.  For some nights, rather sleepless to me, though to my disgust I heard my officers snoring all round me, nothing happened (though, as I heard afterwards, a good deal had been going on outside the harbour), when, at about three o’clock in the morning of the third or fourth night after I had received the warning, I heard a row going on in the direction of the guard-boats and an explosion near to one of the outlying ships.  I had hardly time to think, when something struck the chain of my flagship and seemed to spin past, like a fish in the water.  Then dead silence.  I immediately sent orders to the two fast cruisers, which were lying with steam up, to go to sea and reconnoitre.