beat us. We love the Arrogant, but we do not allow her to lead if we can help it.'
A TALE WORTH TELLING
Another time we were not so lucky. The tale is worth telling to show (a) how one is at the mercy of one's subordinates, and (b) how there is no excuse in the Navy. At odd hours, chiefly in the black night, the Admiral, feeling lonely, calls up one boat from each ship to his gangway, and the signal, which we will label T.V.K., reads: 'Cutter to Flagship from each ship; third-class cruisers to send whaler.' Warned by experience, the First Lieutenant, whom it is not easy to catch napping, had the whaler's crew sleeping all handy by, where one order would send them out like fly-stung cattle. A cutter requires about three times as many men, and on a small cruiser one cannot keep these together. Enter, then, at 11.45 p.m., a zealous signalman with the words: 'Cutter to the Flagship.' In his haste he had omitted to read the conclusion of the signal vouchsafing us the whaler, and (this was his black error) told no one that it was ' T.V.K.,' which would have explained the situation. No, he needs must say 'cutter'; so cutter it was. After the men had been variously dug out of their hammocks and the heavy boat got away, the Flagship wanted to know why we were several scandalous minutes behind our time. It was a direct reflection on the ship and its smartness; a galling and unanswerable wigging that makes men dance and swear with rage. We could only have said that the signal was misread, which would not
