The Bonds of Discipline

As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance, armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British Navy — the whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present day, of the British sailorman.

In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur, though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on that amateur's hard-won information. There exists — unlike some other publication, it is not bound in lead boards — a work by one "M. de C.," based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our well-known _Acolyte_ type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not happen. It covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large type exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the average Dumas novel.

I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue — it is the disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable of writing one page of lyric prose — to the eloquent, the joyful, the impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at the mercy of his agent.

"M. de C.," I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her boats what time H.M.S. _Archimandrite_ lay off Funchal. "M. de C." was, always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him assist the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the rank of "supernumerary captain's servant" — a "post which," I give his words, "I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would have been my destruction."

From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like to those "M. de C." had "envisaged" — if I translate him correctly. It became clear to me that "M. de C." was either a pyramidal liar, or...

I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the _Archimandrite_; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a third-class ticket to Plymouth.