HERO SPIRIT OF THE PORT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 14053, 25 July 1916, Page 9

HERO SPIRIT OF THE PORT.

On tlie hard ,at subset. Shadows deep upon the harbor waters, upon the town —deeper still, brooding over tho spirit of tho sea-salt people who live m these districts. A night ol' pain, and the gloom will 'lift, for it is not the sadness of despair, but of disappointment aud of loss. And these'men, who swing, loose-limbed, about the dockyard entrance, and crowd the drawbridge, crossing and recrossiug to Gosport, or stand m groups about the very slips and gangways trod by Nelson, "wrote a Portsmouth correspondent after the great naval battle m the North Sea. Some of these, weai^ caps beribboned H.M.S. Victory, aud out there,in the fairway a furlong aud a-half distant is the great, grand old wo&den hulk from which streamed the famous signal of Trafalgar, a relic reminding of the glory of the past, a. symbol of a still more glorious future. Many of the mudlarks under the harbor pier . are fatherless now, and their mothers, waiting at the dockyard entrance for the lists that carry the fate of the future, are widows. But we of the city cannot understand the dogged, unbreakable spirit of "these women whose lov.e is the life of men going down to the sea iii ships." Watch after watch, night after night, week m week out, the womankind of our sailorfolk have learned to defy the terror born of anxiety. In - the hour of calamity, searching the pitifully meagre lists of the, saved posted at tlie dockyard gates, there was just the quiver of anguish, but I saw that the lip was set and firm and the teeth were clenched. FIFTY LOST FROM ONE VILLAGE. If England needs an example m courage, m patience, m confidence, it is here, m the hero spirit of this timehonored naval port, and m the creek villages adjacent. At dne of these, where the oyster .fishery provides a nursery for tlie navy, close upon 50 lads are said to* have gone down iv tha .rutland fight. The men still waiting their call to the navy are superb. The R.S^Y.C. en many a. jersey reminds one that if Waterloo was won upon the playing fields of Eton, British yachting may liave much to do with the dramatic fight that Realty gave and the great Jeiiicoe victory yet to^ome. The soul of this s&i-born, sea-loving, sea-living people is at the present time among the greatest spiritual assets of the nation. -It is -a thing little under-! stood'by men who live 'm 'crowded streets of inland towns. It is a- big. wide,, buoyant spirit, and it has come down' from Drake,;-Frobrsher, Raleigh, Grenville. Duncan, and Nelson. DRAKES-DRUM IS BEATING. The 1 .roll of Drake's dram is heard from the Lizard to Dmigeness. The rumble of it is. heard .m every port of the Channel. Here on the hard of Portsmouth, the dull drubbing of it mingles with the immortal call from the grand old wooden line of battleship silhouetted against Gosport and the sky. ....... And the response iis a quickening cf the blood and the old thrill. These people • have ..-seen- .death,, have dallied with it. The old port that witnessed Kempenfeldt's' Royal- George roll over m the Spit M-ith-lier €00 brave, saw the hull of therEurydice towed m, with her priceless roll r of7sbns left stark m the blue i depths'" of, 'S'andown Bayi is impregnated with- the glorious salt sea heritage of faith and dogged, indomitable, sea heroism.