NELSON'S SHIPS.

Northern Advocate, 13 August 1917, Page 4

NELSON'S SHIPS.

"VICTORY" HOLDS HER COURT,

(London "Daily Mail.")

Like an Empress holding Court, Nelson's flagship the Victory swings proudly at Her moorings at Poresmouth Harbour and receives with stately dignity the homage of all modern fighting craft as they pass deferentially by. An appealing sight, one that stirs the blood and sets the mind to weaving visions, this of the newest men-of-war paying their respect l salutations to the oldest warship afloat. But it is not the showy aspect alone that attracts the spectator. A certain sdinefching in the atmosphere, pos. sibly the romahtiic contrast then and now, stimulates the imagination and sets one conjuring up mental .pictures, fanciful, if you will, though so full of charm that one could wish some assurance that they were real. As an illustration, if it be that the mighty dead 'have power to come among us, all-seeing yet unseeii, and walk with shadowy footsteps again the ways along which they once trod an earthly path that led them to undying glory, may we not imagine the shade of gallant Nelson pacing the Victory's quarter-deck and gazing with astonished eyes upon the procession of strange keels which pay honour to his memory, as with swift-gliding obeisance they steam past his grand old flagship? A motely throng often these fighters of to-day, with such oddly shapen hulls among them as to impart a touch of the fantastic to the contrast between past and present. First to move out, a huge superDreadnought swings down on the tide. While she is yet in the distance the call of a bugle winds along her decks, and one notices the crew mustering at her sides. Marine guards are mounted on bridges and quarter-deck. When opposite the Victory the bugles sing a chant of salutation while the men come to attention and remain rigidly thus while the great battleship "doffs her cap," as it were, to the famous old three-decker, then with dignified mien goes her ways to sea. Maybe cruisers big and little follow her I example in giving ceremonious greetings to the Victory as they pass by her. j An interval, and then the destroyers begin to slip past, appearing, as always, to toe in a vast hurry; yet they too "fall in all hands on deck" for the act of homage to the Navy's Pride that may under no circumstances he omitted. Along waddles a monitor, mis-shapen of build, awkward of gait, and "makes her bow" after the fashion of one unused to courtly usages, then lurches onward again, anxious to get where there is plenty of sea room. Well in her wake are the odd craft— very odd some of them so far as looks go. Quainter figures than they have never conformed to the rules of naval etiquette during the long and changeful period in which the Victory has queened lit in this picturesque way over all other of our fighting ships. Each of them salutes her punctiliously. Even the fussy motor-launch-es, though often manned by those who are new to the ways of the sea, scrupulously make conge to the noble old ship. So also do the submarines which pass her. Occasionally one views a striking object-lesson in naval development when a seaplane lis droning waspishly above the Victory's towering masts while a submarine slides gently through the water just under her beam. From her high place as senior flagship the Victory has seen our Navy remodelled more than once, and never in a state of more remarkable transformation than now. Still, as the only visible embodiment of the Senior Service's great traditions, this grand old relic of the "Navy-That-Used-to-Be" daily claims her meed of homage from the "Navy-That-Is," as in days to come she will continue to exact it from "The-Navy-That-Is-Yet-To-Be." And who among us is there that has prescience enough to forecast just what that Navy will be like?