THE STRATEGIST

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 48, 24 February 1917, Page 12

THE STRATEGIST

"THIS TORPEDOING HAS GOT TO BE STOPPED"

"IF I'D BEEN IN CHARGE."-

In London Opinion Vance Palmer .writes thus intertainingly. ■:—

The stout man with the aggressive jaw and protruding eyes always came in at eight. He had his own chair in the corner, and among the half-dozen regular frequenters of the bar, conversation was always in, a state of suspended animation until his arrival. After his arrival it practically ceased. The stout man Had a Napoleonic air and an incorrigible habit of monologue' that did not brook interruption.

"This torpedoing," he began, "has got to be stopped somehow."

The group gave forth low murmurs of assent that did not quite achieve definite articulation, and then subsided into anticipatory silence. It was the stout man's habit to give a running commentary on the chief topic for the day, whether military or naval. He kept a small newspaper shop at thecorner, and sat in a padded chair near the door most of the day reading all" the important journals, the dailies in the morning and the weeklies in the afternoon. By night he had found his opinion. It Was understood' that his pretensions to authority an military and naval subjects were well founded, for his only brother had served in the South African war, and a near relative of his wife's had intimate dealings with the Navy in_ the matter of supplies. But these things were not his sole assets. He had the specialist's manner and voice, and the capacity to reconstruct ah intricate strategical position by means of a glass of beer, a few fragments of cheese, and any tablo cutlery that happened to be lying about. ALL THAT IS WANTED. "This torpedoing has got to be stopped somehow," he said. "In my opinion, all that's wanted is a little imagination. Sailors, as a rule, haven't got any more imagination than a pork chop. All their life they've been used to dealing with facts, and a man who's soaked in facts is like a plough-horse that never thinks about anything but turning at the end of the furrow. The old sailing-ship captains weren't bo bad, because everything wasn't marked .down for them in the Admiralty charts and sailing directories, and when the wind blew three horns a,nd a bugle they didn't measure its velocity and then look up • the chapter on ' typhoons ' before setting their course. They used their own brains all the time, and were always as ready for the unexpected as a dock policeman. But these steam- i ship captains, that run to a printed timetable, don't know what to do when the unexpected turns up. Look at the Doris to-day. A submarine bobbed up ahead of her> not more than a couple of hundred yards a,way, and when she tried to run from it she was hit on the starboard bow. If I'd been in charge of her, do you know what I'd have done? "

The stout man glared at each, of the group in turn with his explosive eyes, but his audience was much to diffident to venture 'an opinion. A couple of strangers, one bearded and. the other shaven, who were sitting on a lounge near the wall, seemed mildly interested.

" I'd have changed my course toward it instead of away," he said, triumphantly. " The sauerkraut submarine must have been nearly ahead of the Doris, or it wouldn't have been hit on the starboard bow when she turned. If she was travelling at fourteen knots an hour she could have covered the two hundred yards in twenty-five seconds, and in that time they'd only have been able to fire one torpedo. ..." AN UNKIND INTERRUPTION. "Rot!" murmured the bearded strangev under his breath. The stout man turned in his chair, and his incandescent eyes were liko searchlights as they swept the room to discover the source of interruption. "There are so many bantam Jellicoes about nowadays," he continued, "that anyone who really knows anything might as well Keep his face shut. But, as I was saying, if she'd gone for them direct they'd have only had time to fire one torpedo. Probably they'd have missed) for it would have been like shooting at the- edge of a razor, but even if they'd hit her nothing ■would have been damaged but the bows. The forward bulkhead ■would have held, and they could have rammed the submarine into, mush before it could get enough way on to make its dive ....'-' "Simple as Sanskrit,"" muttered the bearded stranger under his breath. "If only it had kept in the right place and they'd seen it." The other stranger, who waS* brownfaced and quiet-eyed, looked uneasy as the stout man's piercing gaze swept tho room again. "Oh!" the latter sneered. "They didn't see it, I suppose? They hadn't an idea it was there. It fired from, ten fathoms below on the offchance of hitting something on the. surface." ''It was dark," the. bearded man defended, "and • " "Dark?" interrupted the stout man, "dark at six o'clock in the morning I The sun had been influenced by pro-Oeji-man propaganda that day, so it didn't get up. Dark! Have you ever read more of the day's news than you could get over the other fellow's shoulder as you hung on to a strap in the tramcar? Have you ever poked your head out from underneath the blankets on a March morning to see what amount of light there was?" "More than once," muttered the bearded man, quietly. He had a desperate desire to withdraw from the conversation, for the eyes of the group were fixed on him now in keen hostility, and the stout, man was working up hi 3 rhetoric and indignation to a high pitch. CUTTING SARCASM. "Oh, you have, have you?" he continued. "You're one of the boys that come home with the milk and the morning paper. Perhaps you're a bit of a sailor, too? Crossed over in the Birkenhead ferry without being seasick. Take my place in. the chair here and tell the crowd what you think about the whole business. You know all about it. You could tell exactly inhere-the boat was hit and how far the submarine was away. Don't, be bashful. Poppycock's cheap to-day, and there's a featherweight admiral in every baiv Take my place." He ross and made a gesture with his hand, his nostrils a little dilated. The whole movement was dramatic, but it must be admitted that the time was opportune, for his wife did not allow him to remain after nine-fifteen.. Yet he had scored heavily. Every feature in his face and every line of his figure recorded his triumph. The group applauded with admiring eyes, and followed him to the door, leaving, the bearded stranger to his own discomfiture. For a while the latter smoked in silence, while the clean-shaven man at tho other end of the table -watched him in sympathy. Although they did not know one another, somefihing in their dross and bearing proclaimed their freemasonry. The clean-shavfen man spoke at lost,

sir*" he said at last. "He's what they call an authority." His companion slowly smoked his pipe. "Well," he said modestly, ''I did think I knew something about it. You see I was on the spot. Our boat helped to pick up the crew.."

The clean-shaven man leaned over the table.

"Shake," he said, "I was one of the crew you picked up. Second mate."