MAY 1.

Back in harness again and thankful for the press of work that keeps me from thinking about you all at home.

[Sidenote:  Orders to sail.]

Well, we are going across all right, exactly where and for how long I do not know.  Our present orders are to sail to-morrow night, but there seems to be wild uncertainty about whether we will go out then.  In the meantime, we are frantically taking on mountains of stores, ammunition, provisions, etc., trying to fill our vacancies with new men from the Reserve Ship, and hurrying everything up at high pressure.

Well, I am glad it has come.  It is what I wanted and what I think you wanted for me.  It is useless to discuss all the possibilities of where we are going and what we are going to do.  From the look of things, I think we are going to help the British.  I hope so.  Of course, we are a mere drop in the bucket.

MAY 5.

[Sidenote:  Happier always for having taken the chance.]

As I start off now, my only real big regret is that through circumstances so much of my responsibility has been taken by others—­you, my brother, and your father.  I don’t know that I am really to blame.  At least, I am very sure that never in all my life did I intentionally try to shift any load of mine onto another.  But in any case, it makes me all the more glad that I am where I am, going where I am to go—­to have my chance, in other words.  I once said in jest that all naval officers ought really to get killed, to justify their existence.  I don’t exactly advocate that extreme.  But I shall all my life be happier for having at least taken my chance.  It will increase my self-respect, which in turn increases my usefulness in life.  So can you get my point of view, and be glad with me?

[Sidenote:  The best things of life.]

Now I am to a great extent a fatalist, though I hope it really is something higher than that.  Call it what you will, I have always believed that if we go ahead and do our duty, counting not the cost, then the outcome will be in the hands of a power way beyond our own.  But if it be fated that I don’t come back, let no one ever say, “Poor R——­.”  I have had all the best things of life given me in full measure—­the happiest childhood and boyhood, health, the love of family and friends, the profession I love, marriage to the girl I wanted, and my son.  If I go now, it will be as one who quits the game while the blue chips are all in his own pile.

     GENERAL POST OFFICE, LONDON

MAY 19.

[Sidenote:  Rescuing a sailor.]