sucked under. On coming up he was caught under an upturned boat to
which five hands were clinging. "One lifeboat," says the chief

engineer, "which was floating empty in the distance was cleverly
manoeuvred to our assistance by the steward, who swam off to her

pluckily. Our next endeavour was to release the captain, who was
entangled under the boat. As it was impossible to right her, we

set-to to split her side open with the boat hook, because by awful
bad luck the head of the axe we had flew off at the first blow and

was lost. The rescue took thirty minutes, and the extricated
captain was in a pitiable condition, being badly bruised and having

swallowed a lot of salt water. He was conscious" target="_blank" title="a.无意识的；不觉察的">unconscious. While at that
work the submarine came to the surface quite close and made a

complete circle round us, the seven men that we counted on the
conning tower laughing at our efforts.

"There were eighteen of us saved. I deeply regret the loss of the
chief officer, a fine fellow and a kind shipmate showing splendid

promise. The other men lost--one A.B., one greaser, and two
firemen--were quiet, conscientious, good fellows."

With no restoratives in the boat, they endeavoured to bring the
captain round by means of massage. Meantime the oars were got out

in order to reach the Faroes, which were about thirty miles dead to
windward, but after about nine hours' hard work they had to desist,

and, putting out a sea-anchor, they took shelter under the canvas
boat-cover from the cold wind and torrential rain. Says the

narrator: "We were all very wet and miserable, and decided to have
two biscuits all round. The effects of this and being under the

shelter of the canvas warmed us up and made us feel pretty well
contented. At about sunrise the captain showed signs of recovery,

and by the time the sun was up he was looking a lot better, much to
our relief."

After being informed of what had been done the revived captain
"dropped a bombshell in our midst," by proposing to make for the

Shetlands, which were ONLY one hundred and fifty miles off. "The
wind is in our favour," he said. "I promise to take you there.

Are you all willing?" This--comments the chief engineer--"from a
man who but a few hours previously had been hauled back from the

grave!" The captain's confident manner inspired the men, and they
all agreed. Under the best possible conditions a boat-run of one

hundred and fifty miles in the North Atlantic and in winter weather
would have been a feat of no mean merit, but in the circumstances

it required uncommon nerve and skill to carry out such a promise.
With an oar for a mast and the boat-cover cut down for a sail they

started on their dangerous journey, with the boat compass and the
stars for their guide. The captain's undaunted serenity buoyed

them all up against despondency. He told them what point he was
making for. It was Ronas Hill, "and we struck it as straight as a

die."
The chief engineer commends also the ship steward for the manner in

which he made the little food they had last, the cheery spirit he
manifested, and the great help he was to the captain by keeping the

men in good humour. That trusty man had "his hands cruelly chafed
with the rowing, but it never damped his spirits."

They made Ronas Hill (as straight as a die), and the chief engineer
cannot express their feelings of gratitude and relief when they set

their feet on the shore. He praises the unbounded kindness of the
people in Hillswick. "It seemed to us all like Paradise regained,"

he says, concluding his letter with the words:
"And there was our captain, just his usual self, as if nothing had

happened, as if bringing the boat that hazardous journey and being
the means of saving eighteen souls was to him an everyday

occurrence."
Such is the chief engineer's testimony to the continuity of the old

tradition of the sea, which made by the work of men has in its turn
created for them their simple ideal of conduct.

CONFIDENCE--1919
I.

The seamen hold up the Edifice. They have been holding it up in
the past and they will hold it up in the future, whatever this

future may contain of logical development, of unforeseen new
shapes, of great promises and of dangers still unknown.

It is not an unpardonable stretching of the truth to say that the
British Empire rests on transportation. I am speaking now

naturally of the sea, as a man who has lived on it for many years,
at a time, too, when on sighting a vessel on the horizon of any of

the great oceans it was perfectly safe to bet any reasonable odds
on her being a British ship--with the certitude of making a pretty

good thing of it at the end of the voyage.
I have tried to convey here in popular terms the strong impression

remembered from my young days. The Red Ensign prevailed on the
high seas to such an extent that one always experienced a slight

shock on seeing some other combination of colours blow out at the
peak or flag-pole of any chance encounter in deep water. In the

long run the persistence of the visual fact forced upon the mind a
half-conscious" target="_blank" title="a.无意识的；不觉察的">unconscious sense of its inner significance. We have all

heard of the well-known view that trade follows the flag. And that
is not always true. There is also this truth that the flag, in

normal conditions, represents commerce to the eye and understanding
of the average man. This is a truth, but it is not the whole

truth. In its numbers and in its unfailing ubiquity, the British
Red Ensign, under which naval actions too have been fought,

adventures entered upon and sacrifices offered, represented in fact
something more than the prestige of a great trade.

The flutter of that piece of red bunting showered sentiment on the
nations of the earth. I will not venture to say that in every case

that sentiment was of a friendly nature. Of hatred, half concealed
or concealed not at all, this is not the place to speak; and indeed

the little I have seen of it about the world was tainted with
stupidity and seemed to confess in its very violence the extreme

poorness of its case. But generally it was more in the nature of
envious wonder qualified by a half-concealed admiration.

That flag, which but for the Union Jack in the corner might have
been adopted by the most radical of revolutions, affirmed in its

numbers the stability of purpose, the continuity of effort and the
greatness of Britain's opportunity pursued steadily in the order

and peace of the world: that world which for twenty-five years or
so after 1870 may be said to have been living in holy calm and

hushed silence with only now and then a slight clink of metal, as
if in some distant part of mankind's habitation some restless body

had stumbled over a heap of old armour.
II.

We who have learned by now what a world-war is like may be excused
for considering the disturbances of that period as insignificant

brawls, mere hole-and-corner scuffles. In the world, which memory
depicts as so wonderfullytranquil all over, it was the sea yet

that was the safest place. And the Red Ensign, commercial,
industrial, historic, pervaded the sea! Assertive only by its

numbers, highly significant, and, under its character of a trade--
emblem, nationally expressive, it was symbolic of old and new

ideas, of conservatism and progress, of routine and enterprise, of
drudgery and adventure--and of a certain easy-going optimism that

would have appeared the Father of Sloth itself if it had not been
so stubbornly, so everlastingly active.

The unimaginative, hard-working men, great and small, who served
this flag afloat and ashore, nursed dumbly a mysterious sense of

its greatness. It sheltered magnificently their vagabond labours
under the sleepless eye of the sun. It held up the Edifice. But

it crowned it too. This is not the extravagance of a mixed
metaphor. It is the sober expression of a not very complex truth.

Within that double function the national life that flag represented
so well went on in safety, assured of its daily crust of bread for

which we all pray and without which we would have to give up faith,
hope and charity, the intellectual conquests of our minds and the

sanctified strength of our labouring arms. I may permit myself to
speak of it in these terms because as a matter of fact it was on

that very symbol that I had founded my life and (as I have said
elsewhere in a moment of outspoken gratitude) had known for many

years no other roof above my head.
In those days that symbol was not particularly regarded.

Superficially and definitely it represented but one of the forms of
national activity rather remote from the close-knit organisations

of other industries, a kind of toil not immediately under the
public eye. It was of its Navy that the nation, looking out of the

windows of its world-wide Edifice, was proudly aware. And that was
but fair. The Navy is the armed man at the gate. An existence

depending upon the sea must be guarded with a jealous, sleepless
vigilance, for the sea is but a fickle friend.